


World Wanderer | Anaglyph

by Factory_Manager



Series: World Wanderer Series [3]
Category: No Fandom, Original Work
Genre: Anaglyph, Animal Death, Dragons, Fantasy, Freeform, Gen, Gun Violence, Minor Character Death, No beta send help, Original Character(s), Original Fiction, Original Universe, Original work - Freeform, Reluctant Protagonist, Science Fiction, Slow Burn, Trans Character, minor animal attack, world wanderer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-30
Updated: 2020-05-02
Packaged: 2020-09-07 05:28:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 53,514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20304211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Factory_Manager/pseuds/Factory_Manager
Summary: [Part 3 of Act 0 "Introductions"]Burilmont is an average city. People work and enjoy free time as they please. It had popular locations amongst the locals, good and poor living areas, and noticeably there are no restrictions on the colors or landscape within the city's borders. Burilmont is a normal city. However, normal can have its quirks at times too. Things can be hidden behind unseen doors. People can find themselves walking paths that are blind to others. Nothing is truly normal.It has been nearly a month since arriving in Burilmont and Sol is adjust the best they can. However, the comfort of settling in doesn't last long. After finding a seemingly normal pair of glasses, Sol is dragged into a dangerous and destructive game. Forced to partner with someone with their own attachments to this game, Sol must do their best to win. The reward? Money and answers to questions Sol didn't know they wanted to ask. The cost? Unforeseen consequences.





	1. Chapter 1

It has been a couple of weeks since we moved to the city of Burilmont. Everything about it reminds me of a cross between Heita and Goldsboro. It is lively but not nearly as carefree as Heita. Both business and entertainment are presented to be a balance here. Unlike both, Burilmont was filled with many different colors. Most of them weren't nearly as vibrant as Heita. There were so many variations and shades, it was hard to keep up with it all, especially at night when the city was light with so many bright, flashing lights and signs. It was so much like Heita.

Before we could begin to get settled in Ninety-one and Zero-zero had to get new legal names. Apparently, having a number as a name isn't legally acceptable here. Thankfully the people here had some knowledge of how Heita's names work so the process wasn't too difficult. Ninety-one goes by Nicholas Hyder now, and Zero-zero is Oscar Royal. I also had to take the last name Hyder. First and last names were mandatory according to the law here. At least it is if any of us wanted jobs or a proper home.

We had been given a room at a cheap hotel until we were able to find a place to live. Now we are in an apartment that is smaller than Ninety-one's old one. As for work, Zero-zero works as an assistant for a small company that is starting up. I'm not sure precisely what the company is about but Zero-zero seems to like his job. He says that it is similar to working at the Archives.

Ninety-one works as an accountant in an office. He's used to working long hours, but he doesn't like the smaller payments. Regardless, he still insists that I don't need a job. I've been looking into getting one anyway and haven't had much luck. I've had six interviews so far, but haven't gotten anywhere past that. I guess having only one place on a resume that doesn't exist anymore doesn't help much. That and I don't think I'm very well at interviews in general.

I spend most of my time going around the city and seeing what's around, which isn't as entertaining as Ninety-one suspected it would be. The walking is tiring. I don't have a driver's license yet, and neither Ninety-one or Zero-zero want me to drive without one. Today was another day of wandering around for any entertainment. The best I was able to find was a nice library, but Hue had started getting antsy.

I tug on the straps of my backpack to keep Hue from shifting. He's been getting more and antsier lately. I've tried taking him out places, but there isn't anywhere secluded enough where it is safe for him to be out for too long. Eventually, he began thrashing around so much that I was forced to move to the side of the sidewalk and see what he was doing. He had moved the zipper enough to get free. Without warning he took off, flying in a nearby store that had its door cracked open. Slipping my backpack back on, I followed after him.

No one so much as glanced at Hue as he went. That was something that also reminded me of Goldsboro. No one here seemed particularly interested in anything that passed them by. That all had their own concerns. Their own things to be concerned about. It made dealing with a moody dragon a bit less stressful.

An electronic bell rang when I stepped into the store. It was cramped with mismatched shelves. Each of them filled with all sorts of different things. Figures, small clocks, lamps, globes, picture frames, books, and other things. I think it was an antique store. I'd seen them on TV, but never in person before now.

I picked my way through the narrow walking space to fine Hue. The place was quiet, the only sound being the floor creaking under my feet and the soft piano music playing overhead. There didn't seem to be anyone else inside, but I didn't want to call out to Hue just in case there was someone around.

Turning down one aisle, I almost walking in someone who was crouched on the floor. She was looking thoroughly searching through each section of the shelf as if she was looking for something specific. With the lack of organization, this place had she'll be looking for a while. The young dark-haired woman passed me a half annoyed look and quickly went back to her task. I happily stepped back and searched through another second of the store.

Minutes passed and I was starting to get worried. It could take hours to look through the whole store. Although, the building wasn't large if Hue was moving around, it wouldn't make things any easier. And that is if he doesn't get back outside. Maybe I should have listened to Zero-zero and train him.

When I neared the back of the store, I noticed that there was a faint scratching coming from somewhere in the middle of the shop and I began to follow it. I walked slowly, carefully looking down each shelf I passed. If someone were to see me, they'd think I was going to attempt to steal. Not that there was anything here that I wanted. Eventually, I found Hue perched on a shelf with a small black box in his claws. He was chewing at the tearing paper and cardboard inside in an attempt to break it open.

"What are you doing?" I asked while pulling him down by his harness.

When I tried to pull the box out of his mouth, one side collapsed causing a pair of plastic glasses and a small piece of paper to out. Hue released to box and tried lunged down from my arms. I held him to my side and picked the glasses up myself. They looked to be black framed sunglasses, but the lenses weren't tinted black. Rather, the right one was blue and the left red. Was this really what Hue was after? A pair of stylized glasses? What was so special about these? Out of curiosity, I put them on.

I was a little surprised by how hard it was to see through them. Everything seemed to have a faint overlap to it that made it hard to know what I was looking at. The contrasting blue and red hue was hard to look at, which made focusing on anything all the more difficult.

"Why did you even want these?" I asked. These glasses were starting to give me a headache. Hue wiggled in my arm in an attempt to get free. From what I could make out through the triple vision, he was reaching out with his little hands. "Fine, I'm getting it."

I pushed the glasses to my forehead and picked up the paper. It was cut into a rectangle and thicker than normal paper. More importantly, it was blank on both sides. When I showed it to Hue all he did was smell it. Rolling my eyes, I set the paper back onto the shelf and took off the glasses.

"Can we go home now?" I asked while setting him down to take off my backpack. While I opened it, Hue flew up and knocked down the paper and glasses. I tilted my head back and sighed. "Why?"

With the paper in his hands, Hue held the glasses his mouth and held them out to me. I guess to humor him I put the glasses back on. At this rate, I would have gotten the glasses just to leave the store. I glanced glance down at the now discolored paper to see that it now had words on it. They were a bright white in comparison to everything else as if they weren't affected by the glasses. Taking the paper from Hue, I read them.

'Congratulations new player. By finding these glasses you have become and unofficially player of the Grand competition. To become an official player and compete for glorious money and prizes you, or your team of up to three, come to the 12th-floor meeting room of the Alston Hotel on 31st street on the 1st for further information. Unfortunately, any failure to attend this or any other meeting is an automatic disqualification. Hope to see you there!' On the back was the word Congratulations in capital letters.

"Alright, what next?" I asked while taking off the glasses and rubbing my eyes. There was no specific date on the paper, so as far as I knew the competition had already ended.

When I looked up, Hue was crawling inside the backpack. I pushed in the dangling leash of his harness in too before zipping up the bag. I set the glasses and paper back on the shelf before picking up the torn remains of the black box. I shifted the bag as Hue moved around to get comfortable before weaving my way back through the store.

As I went, I passed the girl from before. She was in a different spot, still searching through shelves. I didn't understand why she didn't ask whoever was working her, but I wasn't my business regardless. I ignored the passing glance she gave me and left. I had to stretch as soon as I stepped out onto the sidewalk. That place was far too cramped. I took out my phone and checked the time, I would be three hours until either Ninety-one or Zero-zero would be done with work. With Hue acting the way he was, it was probably better to just go home and wait.

I walked out into the passing crowd to head off to the nearest bus stop. The buses here are busier than the train I used to take and a lot more chaotic. There was no telling what kind of people would be there. Once when Zero-zero was teaching me how the process worked we saw a man who was shaking and muttering loudly to himself. Zero-zero said that he was drugged out. I regret asking what that meant because what followed was an hour conversation about narcotics, all there variation and why I'm not supposed to take any food or drinks from other people. After all of that, both he and Ninety-one talked to me about being cautious of strangers and how Burilmont wasn't nearly as safe as Heita when it came to the people. I think they forgot that I'm an adult and used to take care of myself.

I eventually reached the bus stop and was lucky enough to find space on the bench to sit next to an elderly couple. While I waited, I took out my phone and pulled up the map application that was connected to the library. An icon for Burilmont hadn't shown up since arriving here. I didn't know whether that was a good or bad sign. Either way, the city was plainly marked on the map as a grey dot with the name underneath. It was to the left of Heita's icon, which in turn sat to the north of Goldsboro's.

I closed the application just before noticing a shadow moving over me. Without fully lifting my head, I glanced at the person who was leaned against the light post next to me. Whoever the were, the person was turned away from me and was also looking at their phone. I shrugged it off and decided to search for any restaurant near the apartment. Ninety-one says it is a good way to try new foods. Zero-zero just doesn't want me to keep choosing pizza, which admitted is my safe zone for food that isn't cooked at home.

The bus rolled up after about thirty minutes. It was white with a thick blue stripe going across the side. After waiting for the people exiting to get off, I took out my bus card and slid it through the small scanner next to the driver. I sat next to a window with the backpack in my lap. Hue shifted a little inside to get comfortable. Looking down, I realized that the zipper can come open a bit. I quickly closed it back before Hue hot any more ideas about escaping.

At times like this, I wished that he was a dog or a cat. Something that wouldn't attract a lot of attention, and could fly off on me. Ninety-one suggested getting Hue a little costume, but he barely tolerates the harness as it is and will probably tear a costume to pieces given the chance.

I watched out the window as the bus began moving. In the reflection. There wasn't much to see other than cars and people. I really needed to find something to do with myself. Simply wandering around was getting boring. I wasn't exactly looking for anything exciting to do, just something constant. Ninety-one suggested joining some type of club, but I didn't think I was social enough for something like that.

I looked up as a large hailing truck passed by. The advertisement on the side was a dark shade of purple with white writing. With ut there, I could see the reflection of the inside of the bus in the window. The person sitting across the aisle was staring in my directing. They looked like the girl from the shop. I tried not to think anything of it. It was a public bus, there were a lot of other people on it.

My ride lasted around thirty minutes altogether. The bus had gotten rather crowded in that time, so I had to wait until I was off to put my backpack on. I didn't want anyone to accidentally bump it. The bus spot was located in a fancy shopping area that was only a couple of blocks from the apartment, so I still had a bit of a walk to go. The buildings here were two and three floors high, most of them holding multiple stores. The outer walls were either painted in pale colors or showed exposed brick.

Normally it was too crowded to even consider going through, more so on weekends and afternoon, but right now it wasn't too bad. I waited for the crowd of people around the bus stop to thin out a bit before putting my backpack on. When I finally had the space to do so, I was hit in the back of the leg with almost enough force to send me to the ground. There was a blur of grey as someone reached out and stole the backpack. By the time I looked up, the person was already sprinting through the crowd.

Pushing past people, I chased after them. From what I could tell they had a grey sweater with the hood pulled over their head. They were running fast, a lot faster than I could keep up with. Each moment they were getting further and further away. Soon enough, I couldn't see them at all. I looked around me as I went to try and see if the person had gone into any of the buildings. I couldn't slow down in case they hadn't. I kept running. I had to if I never wanted to see Hue again.

If the person told off the hood would I still be able to spot them? What if they had hidden and were running back the other direction? What did they even want with my bag in the first place, it looked pretty much empty. Had they see Hue and wanted him? Were they planning on selling him?

My legs and chest burned by the time I broke through the crowd at the end of the shopping area. My head spun as I struggled to take in air. I looked around. The person in the hoodie was nowhere in sight.

I didn't know what to do. Should I keep going forward or go back? I doubted they left any trail or hint of where they had gone. Maybe someone had seen where they had gone? But by the time I asked around and maybe find someone who could point me in the right direction, the person would only get further away. I just keep heading forward and maybe, maybe I would find something that will help me. I just needed a sign.

Passed the cluster of stores sat a large parking lot for the shops and the few local businesses that were around. There were a few people entering and leaving it. None of them were wearing grey sweaters or carrying black backpacks. I looked down each line of vehicles as I passed. Still nothing. How far could one person run?

There was a frightened scream. It founded like a woman, maybe my age or younger. I headed over to where I thought it came from. There were alleyways between tall bricked buildings. Each had a tall chain-link fence standing halfway between each end. Maybe the person had tried to climb over and had gotten stuck?

"Let go of me!" a woman's voice shouted.

I followed it to where the woman from the antique shop stood against the tall fence. Hue was biting into her arm as she attempted to pull him off. Drops of blood rolled down there arm. When I approached them, the first thing I did was retrieve my backpack from the ground.

"Help me," the girl cried. "Get this thing off of me."

I grab the end of his leash and lightly tugged it. "Let her go, Hue."

More blood poured down the girl's arm as Hue pulled his teeth out. He gave her one last snarl before turning to me. I happily took him in my arms. The girl looked over her bleeding arm. Hue had torn right through the sweater sleeve, exposing blood and light brown skin.

"Why did you try to steal him?" I asked.

"I didn't know that thing was in there!" she shouted defensively.

"Then what did you want?"

She looked to the ground, causing her long dark hair to fall over her face. "I wanted the glasses. I need them."

"What glasses?"

"The glasses from the store," her voice sounded strained as if she was holding back anger. "I know you took them. I need them."

"I don't have the glasses. I left them on the shelf."

"I don't believe you!" she shouted, glaring at me.

"You stole my bag and my pet, do you think I care?" I shouted back at her. She gritted her teeth but said nothing.

I turned and stepped away from her. I opened my back to put Hue inside but stopped when I noticed the paper and glasses sitting at the bottom.

"Did you take these?" I asked, turning to Hue. "I'm not going to that hotel. It's probably over anyway."

"Then let me have them," the girl said. When I looked back at her, she began to walk towards us, but a growl from Hue made her stop. "You don't want them anyway, so why not let me have them?"

"Because you stole from me? Why would I give you anything?"

"What if I bought them from you? Just tell me how much you want for them?"

I narrow my eyes at her. "Get in the bag, Hue. We're going home."

"But I need-"

"I don't care about what you need," I said while zipping Hue up in the backpack. "Maybe if you would have asked, but not after this."

I pulled on my backpack and left the alley. I felt tired, both physically and mentally. As soon as I got home I was going to lay down. No, I needed to wash the blood off of Hue first. I probably needed to wash my bag too. I was covered in sweat, so a shower was necessary too. I'm going to just stay home tomorrow, I prefer being bored than all this running around and dealing with thieves.


	2. Chapter 2

I dropped down on my bed and sighed. After a shower, I had put on a pair of shorts and a t-shirt. My legs were sore from running so much. The back of my left knee stung from being kicked. I wanted to go to sleep, but my mind was too worked up. What was the point of all of that? Hue rushing off into the store. That girl stealing from me. What was so important about those glasses? Was that competition what that girl wanted to know about? I can't believe Hue bit her that bad. I'd seen him attack an Enforcer, but that was different. Maybe being tossed around by her running had angered him. Either way, he was fine now. Hue was laying on his side, asleep.

I hadn't noticed until bathing him, that Hue had gotten another section of color on his bag. It was a dark shade of red, nearly the color of blood. It sat in between magenta and the lighter shade of red. When we first arrived here, I had expected him to get some new colors on his back. When he didn't, I figured that possibly it wouldn't happen again or it had to be a special case. There were so many colors in this city, I had thought that maybe it was too much for Hue's body to take in. I just wish there wasn't a sure way to know.

Hue had lost all interest in the glasses once we arrived home. I could have just been tired, but I wanted to believe that it would last. Although, he might go back to bugging me about it once the first of the month rolls around. Maybe if I broke them, he won't bother. I had to admit I was a bit more curious about this contest now. If that girl was still willing to try and convince me to give her the glasses even after Hue had bitten through her arm, then maybe there was something important about it.

I turned to my side and got my phone off the side table. Before forgetting, I ordered dinner for tonight. After finishing that I searched for information about and upcoming contest. Most of what came up were events hosted by companies to drum up business and require a purchase of some kind. None of the mentioned any kind of glasses to be able to quantify. According to the internet, they were called 3D glasses. About a decade or so they were used to create a more realistic effect for movies.

I took the glasses from their place by the lamp and put them on. I could already feel the headache forming. I gazed over my wall and ceilings. The formerly white surfaces were now blue or red never both. Always changing depending on what angle I’m looking at or where I was looking at. There were no words written on anything, thankfully.

Rolling off the bed, I slowly made my way past my closet door and out my room. I stepped into the short hallway and saw nothing. The walls were bare of both writing and decoration. To the left were two other doors that were open; they belonged to Ninety-one and Zero-zero. Toward the right, was the end of the hallway and the rest of the apartment.

It was much smaller than the one in Heita. The kitchen took up half of the space, with the living room taking up the other half. Between them was hardly enough room for a small dinner table. It reminded me of my apartment in Goldsboro. Just not quite as confined. All of the furniture except for the beds came with the apartment. Ninety-one said that this made the price of renting this place higher, but at least there wasn’t a need to buy furniture.

I took off the glasses and rubbed my eyes. This was a waste of time. There wasn’t any writing on the walls. Why would there be? What would be the point of writing hidden messages on the walls of some random apartment? The glasses probably only worked with a special type of pen.

I returned to my room and set the glasses back on the table. With a sigh, I laid on the bed. Now I wasn't just tired hut had a headache too. I closed my eyes and waited to eventually fall asleep. When I woke from my nap, Hue was partially standing on my head. I was worried that he was going to start back up on the glasses thing, but then I heard the faint sound of the door to the apartment unlocking. I nudged Hue off of me and headed to the door.

"We're home," Ninety-one called.

"Hey, how was work?" I asked when I entered the living room.

"It was all meeting arrangements and printing out paperwork," Zero-zero said as he sat down at the dinner table. Our food had been delivered about an hour ago and was sitting on the table. I had already set out plates and utensils in our usual spots.

"I got two new clients today. They recently opened up a bakery," Ninety-one said. "That sounds so nice, doesn't it."

"People are allowed to have their own business?" I asked. "I thought that only the government could do that."

"Sometimes, but it isn't common. At least that was the case in Heita," Zero-zero said.

"Did anything new happen to you, Sol?"

"This girl stole my backpack-"

"What?" Both of them said, nearly shout before I could finish.

"I got it back." I paused. "After Hue bit through her arm."

"He attacked someone?" Ninety-one asked.

"He was in my backpack when it was taken. I think being shaken around upset him."

"How bad was the bite?"

"Pretty bad. There was quite a bit of blood."

"Good, that'll teach her from doing it again," Zero-zero said.

"Don't say that she could have had to go to the hospital," Ninety-one chided.

"She committed a crime and got hurt because of it. That's karma."

Ninety-one shook his head and turned back to me. "Either way, you should be careful. Not just with your bag but with him as well. Someone could take and try and sell him."

"You should also try to train him a bit," Zero-zero added.

"Do you think they'll have books on that at the bookstore?" I asked.

Zero-zero shook his head. "For dragons? No, but I'm sure one for dogs will work just as well."

As long as I could teach him not to fly off on his own and steal things, then I would be fine. The last time he did that I almost got attacked by a Masked. It's like he is trying to find trouble for me.

"Well, I'm glad that you're safe and unharmed," Ninety-one said.

"Yeah," I said before taking a bite of chicken. It was better than I thought it would be. A few minutes passed with idle chit-chat between Ninety-one and Zero-zero as they spoke about work and what they wanted to get for the apartment.

“I got an invitation to join a competition.”

“From who?” Zero-zero asked. “I don’t know you knew anyone in the city yet.”

“I don’t. I found it at a store. It is an open invitation kind of thing. Anyone who finds one is allowed to join as long as they show up to the first meeting.”

“What kind of competition is it?” Ninety-one asked. “What do you have to do to play?”

“I don’t know. The paper didn’t have any specifics on it.”

“That seems rather shady,” Zero-zero commented.

“I wasn’t planning on going.”

“Why not? It may not hurt to check it out,” Ninety-one said. “Go to the meeting and get a feel for it before deciding on anything. You never know, you might find it fun.”

“Are you sure about that?” Zero-zero asked.

“There isn’t any harm in looking into it, right?” Ninety-one smiled “Besides, it’ll give Sol a chance to meet new people.”

After dinner, when everyone was in their rooms and settled in for bed, I had gone back to trying to look up any information on the competition. I was still skeptical of it. Not so much because of how vague the invitation was, but how persistent that girl was about getting the glasses. If they were needed to participate than that had to be what she wanted them for.

The invitation promised money and prices, maybe that’s what she wanted? There had to be more than just the one pair of glasses in Burilmont, why did she have to try and steal the ones I had?

“Why couldn’t she have just asked like a normal person,” I hissed into my darkened room.

Huffing, I dropped my phot to my side and turned over in the bed. Across the small room was a window. The blinds were pulled down but that didn’t stop the bright lights of nearby signs from slipping through the cracks. I could hear sirens and faint music playing up from the streets. This place was so much like Heita.

I threw the covers off and onto Hue, before standing. I took the glasses off the table and headed over to the window. Tugging the cord, I pulled up the blinds and let in all the light from the night. All around lights from billboards, flashing signs and cars lit up the night. It wasn’t nearly as bright in Heita, but it was better than the silent darkness of Goldsboro. The streets were just as crowded as they were at night. So many people had so many different places to be.

Sometimes I wished I could be one of them. The thought of being familiar with this place, someplace in general, to be somewhere you knew almost everything about, where everything was, it sounded nice. To have every day be the same as the last and those to come. To know so many names and faces, and to have them know you. To know you belonged here. I wish I had that.

There was a sudden weight as Hue landed on my shoulder. The glasses were gripped gently in his mouth. I held out my hand and he dropped them on my palm. Opening up the glasses, I put them on and looked out into the city. It was different than how it was in the store or the apartment. It wasn’t just the red and blue overlap. Like the paper, the were white words written over things.

‘Final round tonight!’

‘Winner takes all!’

‘It all comes down to one grand event!’

The words were written in giant white letters over multiple buildings. Amongst all were smaller shapes that seemed to act more of decoration than anything else.

What was all of this? Why have all of this put everywhere if hardly anyone could see it? How did it even end up like this? Surely we would have seen the words be put in place. Unless they have been there long before we got here. The writings make it seem like the competition was ending, but the paper said that it wouldn’t start for a few days. Was there more than one?

“What do you think Hue? Should I go check out this game?”I asked while taking off the glasses. He flew from my shoulder and headed for the door. He made excited chirping sounds as he went. I shushed him. “Be quiet. We can’t go now anyway, it is the middle of the night.”

He flew around the room, only getting louder as he went.

“Fine, okay. We can go for a little while, just let me get dressed first.” He went silent immediately. Tomorrow I was going to attempt to train him. “This better not get me robbed again.”

Ninety-one and Zero-zero had said that it was fine for me to leave the apartment whenever I wanted to. They didn’t specifically say that it had to be during the day, so if they find out it should be fine. But waking them to tell them that I was going out for a short walk would have been unnecessary. Besides, I’d be back long before they woke up anyway.

Once downstairs and out onto the outside steps of the building and put on the glasses on. More words were advertising the upcoming final event. They were kind of hard to look at from the angle at ground level. I stepped onto the sidewalk and headed deeper into the city.

I walked for nearly over a block, but I couldn’t decipher anything from the messages. They all said that something was happening tonight, but there was no information about when or where. I had hoped to see the final event was to get an idea of what the competition was going to be like.

I stepped off of the sidewalk into a small courtyard of a building. I sat at a bench under a street lamp. The duplicate light was a bit hard to look at in contrast to the darkness, especially with the small triangular shapes decorating the ground under it. I took off my backpack and unzipped it just enough that Hue could stick his head out.

“This was your idea, so where should we go?” I asked.

He looked around before focusing on the wall of the building. There was a large white rectangle that almost looked like a door. After putting on my backpack I headed over to it.

There didn’t seem to be anything special about it in comparison to all the other words and shapes. This one was just larger than the rest. I glanced around a bit before reaching forward and touching it. My hand passed through the white space like it nor the wall it sat on wasn’t even there. Retracting my hand, I took off the glasses and looked around. The wall looked normal. When I touched it again it felt like solid concrete.

“Is this where you want us to go?” Hue cooed and I took that as a yes. I sighed. “Alright, but we better not get stuck in there. I’m trusting you on this.”

After putting on the glasses and walked forward. A blinding bright light passed over us as I walked through, forcing me to close my eyes. I only needed to take a few steps for it to fade. Looking out, I saw that I was still in the same spot, only now my back was to the wall and everything was covered in a blue tint. Taking off the glasses didn’t change that, it only made the words and symbols disappear. I held up to look only through the red lens, but everything was still blue.

I slid the glasses onto my forehead and gazed around. “What now?”

Hue turned his head toward the intersection nearby. I followed his direction for a few blocks, occasionally looking through the glasses as we went, just to see if there was anything worth noting around. Besides the odd tint, everything seemed normal. Checking my phone, I saw that it was almost ten. I’d give it another hour or so before going back. After a while, Hue nudge me with his nose and pointed over towards a store. It was a small convenience store wedged in between two larger clothing stores.

“Where is it that you want us to go?” I asked in a low voice. I got a yawn in response. “Alright.”

The store didn’t seem to have anything special about it, but before I could get a good look around, I spotted a person a few feet away. It was that girl from earlier today. She was looking over a rack of sunglasses.

“You’ve got to be joking,” I said with a huff. “No. We’re going home.”

The moment I began to turn away, Hue wiggled out of the backpack and flew forward. He was jerked back by his leash which I had tied to one of my backpack straps before leaving. I grabbed onto it and quickly began pulling him back. Thankfully, no one had seen us yet, but I doubted that would last long.

Despite Hue’s resistance, I almost had him when the girl turned around. Both Hue and I froze. She didn’t so much as glance up before she began walking forward. I tried to step back so she wouldn’t run into me, but that didn’t her from getting close to Hue. He didn’t so much as flinch as the girl passed directly through him. Confused, I reached out and watched as she walked through my arm. Before I could fully process what was happening, and a man walked completely through my body. I had to shake myself fr0m it. I didn’t feel anything, but it was very disorientating.

“What is this?” I asked while looking around.

Why couldn’t anyone see us? Why could they walk through us? This must have been a result of walking through that white doorway, but why? Was this why Hue wanted me to have the glasses? Was this also part of the game? Hue landed on my shoulder and pointed over towards the girl. She was leaving the store.

“You want me to follow her? But isn’t that weird?” He squeaked in response. “What does that even mean?”

Although reluctantly, I followed behind the girl just to see what Hue was so determined for me to see. It was a little unsettling how easy it was. I was walking right next to her and she never even noticed. I didn’t have to worry about staying out of sight or losing her in the crowd. I hoped there weren’t a lot of these glasses around, this was uncomfortable.

“This better be worth it,” I whispered to Hue. I didn’t know if we were still able to be heard, not that taking the chance would amount to anything.

One block, then two, then another and another. It was getting boring fast. The girl kept looking down at her phone. When I glanced over, she seemed to be looking at a GPS. There wasn’t any indication on it to tell how far her destination was, but if she arrived at a house or apartment I was definitely leaving. I already felt weird enough about this.

After about fifteen minutes. She stopped at a two-story building. All of the windows were completely dark and there were no signs telling what it was. That didn't stop the girl from walking around the side into the dark shadows of the neighboring buildings. The was a metal door on the side of the building. Without hesitating, she walked up and went inside.

“This better not be like the warehouse,” I muttered to myself before following her.

It was so dark inside that I could hardly tell what anything was. I from what I could make out, we were in a short hallway that led out into a large professional kitchen. Beyond that, we passed through a cafeteria and then a wide carpeted hallway. The girl used the dim light of her phone screen to light the way as we made our way passed several doors that sat few and far between.

Eventually, we came to a set of tall wooden double doors that stood open. The girl peeked inside the large room. Chairs and round tables had been pushed to the sides. From the ceiling hung a crystal chandelier that barely managed to light the entire space. Underneath it stood three people. Two of them stood at least fifty feet apart with their backs to each other. Both of them held a pistol in their hands.

The one to the left looked to be just a bit older than me. He wore torn pants and a t-shirt. His exposed arms were severely bruised. Splatters of dried blood stained the bottom of his shirt. The other looked much older. He was balding with light hair near his ears that traveled to the lower back of his head. He wore a ragged brown suit that was ripped in several places. I couldn’t see his face.

The third person was a woman with long, curly silver hair that seemed to glitter in the light. She wore an elegant dress that sparkled even more than her hair. Her skin was dark, darker than mine. She was slim and had one hand on her hip as she spoke to the two men. She was mostly turned away from us, but from what I could see, she looked calm, almost pleased with the situation. She had silvery-blue lipstick and eyeshadow on. It probably looked less blue normally.

“I’m sure both of you know how this old game is played, so I won’t bother explaining it,” the woman said. Her voice was smooth and sound happy as if she wanted to laugh. It was a bit unsettling with the situation. The man in the casual clothes frowned as he stared at the floor. I could see his grip on the gun tightened. “I’m going to count down from ten. You know what to do when I get to zero.”

With that, she began counting. Her pace was slow and even. Almost like she was mocking the two men why simply stood and waited. I glanced down at the girl who was crouched, mostly behind the open door. She looked just as tense as I felt. Had she really come all this way to see this? I didn’t know what this ‘old game’ was, but it didn’t take much to figure out.

The woman was at five.

Against any better judgment, I stepped out into the room. I glanced back at the girl to make sure that I was still unseen. She didn’t so much as a glance in my direction. I took a deep breath and kept going.

The men were visibly tensing up. However, the woman only seemed to be counting slower. She was clearly enjoying what was happening. I couldn’t understand why. Maybe that was why I wanted to get closer. To understand why her voice got more and more joyful as she went.

“Two,” she almost seemed to sing. The men were sweating. The older one was visibly shaking. “One and a half.”

She was playing with them. It was cruel. Why as she doing this? Why were these men allowing this to happen? Why not just leave? What was stopping them?

“One.” I now stood a few feet behind the woman. She was smiling and looked to be stifling a laugh.

I jumped as Hue shifted on my shoulder. I didn’t bother to look. It was probably just the girl leaving or something. It didn’t matter. This is where he wanted me to be right, what did it matter what she did now.

“One half.”

Hue gave out a low hiss.

“What are you doing here, dear?” the voice was close. When I turned around, there was a man standing over me.

He looked similar to the woman as if they were siblings. He didn’t have the blue tint over him allowing me to see the true color of his long golden hair and the deep brown of his skin. He stood over a foot taller than me. The man wore a black suit that had tiny specks of gold woven into the fabric that shimmered in the light. He gazed down at me with golden eyes that matched his hair and the makeup that covered his eyelids. He had a hand resting on the side of his face. His nails were long and painted gold. The one on his small finger nearly touched his equally golden lipstick.

With his other hand, he reached out and tapped the glasses on my head. “Sorry, but the next game doesn’t start for a few days. I love your eagerness though.” His voice was just as smooth as the silver-haired woman’s.

At the sight of movement, I glance to his neck, where a yellow snake with white, wavy rings on its back and sides, uncoiled itself and traveled down the man’s arm. It flicked its black tongue while gazing at me with equally dark eyes. Hue hissed and retreated into my backpack. That alone was worrying.

“You and your friend back there are in a bit of trouble for trying to get a sneak peek on our little game.”

“Zero.”

I flinched as two gunshots rang out and lights flashed. The man in front of me let out a low chuckle. His snake was moving over my shoulders. “You’re going to be fun to play with.”


	3. Chapter 3

The girl hadn't left. The man, Gold as he introduced himself as had found her shortly before finding me. The two of us now stood together in front of the man and his sister, Silver. They were whispering closely to each other. I couldn't tell what they were saying. I was too focused on the panic building in my chest and the two bleeding bodies on the floor. The two men had ended shooting each other. The older one was dead by the time Hold had led me back to the normal world. The younger one had bled to death sometime after.

The girl next to me rubbed at her arm. She had a new hoodie on. The arm where Hue had bitten her looked larger than the other as if there was something wrapped around her arm. Gauze maybe. The girl kept her head low but carefully watched gold and silver.

The yellow snake still sat on my shoulders. It had lost interest in Hue and just sat waiting and watching us. It only shifted when Gold and Silver approached us. Gold set a hand on my shoulder and the snake began to slither up his arm.

"What are you two doing here?" Silver asked.

"I just wanted to know what the game was about." the girl spoke up "I didn't know that coming here was against the rules."

“If you didn’t think you were doing anything wrong, then why were you sneaking around?” Silver asked.

“I didn’t want to interrupt,” the girl said a bit too quickly.

"That doesn't change the fact that you broke them." I watched him from the corner of my eyes as Gold removed his hand and stepped to the side of me. He peered down into my partially open backpack. "Who is this?"

"His name is Hue," I answered.

"That’s adorable," Gold chuckled “What is yours?”

“Sol.”

He reached to his shoulders and petted the snake. "This little one is Adonis. I think she likes you."

"What do you want with us?" The girl asked.

"Well," Silver spoke, "normally we wouldn't even bother to entertain cheaters, but we are going to make an exception this time."

"If you two want to play our game so badly, then we might as well let you participate," Gold said.

"But I don't want to play," I said. "Hue led me here. I don’t know that any of this was going on.“

“Your pet led you here?” Silver asked skeptically.

“Their pet dragon,” Gold clarified.

Hearing this, Silver circled around me and looked inside the backpack. “Well, isn’t that interesting. Dear, why don’t you take him out so we can get a good look at him.”

“You’re not going to take him, are you?”

“No, no. We just want to see him.”

I didn’t fully believe them but took off my backpack regardless. Hue didn’t struggle as I lifted him up. He stared up at the siblings with wide eyes. I’d never seen him like this before. He was fine with Enforcers and the Masked, but these two made him uncomfortable? It was unnerving. Who are they? What could they do that made him so bothered? Hue stayed completely frozen when both Silver and Gold reached out to pet him.

“He’ll make an excellent third member to your group,” Silver remarked.

“We have to work together?” the girl asked. “Can’t we play separately?”

“No,” Silver said plainly.

“Cheaters don’t get to make special requests,” Gold remarked.

“What if I don’t want to play?” I asked.

Silver smiled and rested her hand on my cheek. “Sorry, dear, but you don’t get that option. Even if you decide not to show up and play, we’d just find a way to force you to.”

“Why?”

Gold patted my head. “You ask too many questions.”

Silver dropped her hand and stepped away from us. "As fun as it has been dealing with you both, it is getting late and we have a game to finish setting up."

"Why don't you two get going," Gold said while removing his hand from my head.

Once the siblings had their backs to us I picked up my bag and left. Hue crawled his way into the backpack just as I left the room. I zipped it up so he couldn't escape. This was the last time I was going to follow him anywhere. Each time it had only led to problems. Now I was forced to play some competition that might end with me having to shoot someone. I could only imagine what the other games will entail.

I had no idea how they were going to force me to play, and I didn't want to find out. Playing their game or not, Silver had gotten those two men to shoot each other. It probably wouldn't take much for them to get someone to do the same to me. Zero-zero was right, this competition was shady and dangerous. Now I was stuck in it. There had to be a way to get out of this.

"Hey, wait," a voice called out. I didn't pay them any attention. I had enough to deal with. Unfortunately, the girl didn't see it that way. She ran up and stopped in front of me. "Hold on a minute."

"What do you want?"

"I just want to talk."

I pushed past her. "I don't care about what you have to say."

"Look, we are going to have to work together when the game starts, so you might as well get used to me." I didn't respond. "You're mad at me. I get that, but this is serious. People die playing this game. Our best chance of getting through this and winning is to at least tolerate each other. If those two don't get us killed the other players might."

"What are you talking about?"

"This isn't some fun pastime where we compete for pocket change. People get paid serious money for winning rounds. The end prize is supposed to be unimaginably great. That all means that the people playing will do whatever they need to do in order to win. They are dangerous people who won't hesitate to get players like us out of their way, people who don't have money and influence to help themselves."

"Why would anyone choose to put themselves through that?"

"Desperation, greed, curiosity, there's no telling. People are motivated by different things."

"That doesn't make sense. Why would such a high stakes game start by collecting glasses in a store?"

She shrugged. "Maybe to encourage regular people to play, not just the rich. People who need the money are more willing to do more to get it."

"Is that why you want to play so badly?"

"Something like that, yeah," She turned away when she spoke and was quiet for a bit afterward. Normal, I would have asked what was wrong, but I was not in the mood to care. I just wanted to get home and sleep. "My name's Quince by the way."

"Sol."

"How did you find that place anyway?"

"What does it matter?"

"I'm just curious. Before, you didn't know the game existed. Then the next time I see you, you appear out of a wall with that flashy Gold guy. How'd you do that?"

"Does it matter?"

"Yes. That could help us in the game. Maybe even win it."

"I'm not going to play long enough to win."

"What? Do you have any idea what they will do to you if you don't play seriously?"

"Do you?" She opened her mouth to speak but said nothing. "Even if they found me and force me to play, I'd just lose after the first task and be done with it."

"But-but you can't do that. I still want to play. I need to play this game. If you lose, I lose." She took a deep breath. "Alright, listen, we can work something out. We can figure out a way to win."

"You just finished talking about how dangerous this game is, now you want to convince me to play? I am not going to risk my life for money, I don't care how much it is." She grabbed onto my bag to stop me, but immediately let go when she heard Hue growl. I would have appreciated that back at the building, but now was fine too. "Go away. I'm done talking to you."

She didn't follow me after that. Walk back to the home was quiet and miserable. The apartment was just as dark and quiet as I had left it. I didn't bother to look at the time when I got dressed for bed and laid down.

After that night, I didn’t leave the house for two days straight. I spent my time inside training Hue. Instead of going to the bookstore like I originally planned, I just looked up training instructions. He would sit and stay when I told him to without a problem. Those were easier than I expected them to be. He knew to fetch and go to whatever area of the house I told him to go to. Hue could understand me to a certain extent, which meant the problem was that he decided that he didn’t want to listen to me.

I was making him practice finding his toys around the apartment and returning them to the plastic box that sat near my bed. After the fourth time going through the practice, he started putting them under the bed. It would have been cute if I wasn't still mad at him for what happened the other night.

I still didn't know what I was going to do about this game I was dragged into. I wanted to just not show up and hope they wouldn't care enough to find me, but that probably wouldn't work out. Why did those two even care if I played their game or not? What was the point of making me play? Why did Hue need to play too? I mostly dreaded to find out what they were going to make us do. The month was almost over and I haven't decided what to do yet.

When the weekend came around, Ninety-one insisted that we all do something fun together. He wanted us to learn more about the city, so he suggested going to a museum. Zero-zero didn't seem as excited. I could sort of understand why. It was a large building with old paintings and objects in it. Each one had a story behind it, but if you weren't interested in tales of the past it was a tiring experience.

There were nearly a dozen museums, all of them focusing on a different aspect of Burilmont's history. They were all located in one area, along with an art gallery and a theater. Between them was a large park. Ninety-one had wanted us to see everything there but after the fourth one, Zero-zero insisted that we do something else. We ended up eating at a small restaurant that sat inside the park.

We spend the next day at home, doing housework and relaxing. We did that every weekend. Ninety-one insists that it brings us closer together. Zero-zero said that it was like we were a family. I think that he was trying to make a joke, but I didn’t get it and Ninety-one just agreed with him.

When the first finally did arrive, I had decided to simply not go. Those people knew nothing but my name. Burilmont is large and the chances of them finding me were slim at best. I'd stay confined to the apartment for a while then I'd probably be fine. They were just people, I've dealt with worse.

That didn’t stop me from feeling anxious from the moment I woke up this morning. Once Zero-zero and Ninety-one had already left for work and I was left to listen to the AC blowing through the apartment. We didn’t have a TV yet, so I laid on my bed and watched outside my window. A flock of birds flew by, then a helicopter, those were hard to get used to, a single bird would go by, maybe it was grey, maybe it was black. It was boring but boring was also calming. Being bored meant no excitement, that meant no danger and I'd had enough of that.

Hue hissed when a grey bird landed on the outer windowsill. It was a small, pudgy thing looked like it should roll instead of fly. The bird turned its head as it looked us over. From the corner of my eye, I saw Hue stand up on the bed. The bed pecked on the glass for a few seconds before Hue launched himself at the glasses. Despite being able to fly, he fell to the floor.

“Why would you do that?” I asked while sitting up. He jumped up on the windowsill. Seeing, that the bird had flown away, he flew back over to the bad and laid down next to me.

I knew that Hue wasn’t a fan of birds, or squirrels either, but I’d never seen me try to attack one before. Birds have landed on the sill before and he didn’t seem to mind. Maybe he was just antsy about being in the apartment for so long. It has been four days.

It was about fifteen minutes later when the bird returned. This time when Hue went over to the window, he sat on it and hissed. When the bird didn’t reach, he started pawing at the glass. I left him to it while I went into the kitchen to get a drink.

When I stepped into the main room I saw that the front door was open. I was sure that it had been closed earlier. The lock probably didn't catch properly and it swung open. I shrugged it off and went over to shut the door. I glanced out into the hallway. There wasn't anyone around. Anyone who worked had already left. anyone who didn't probably would be up for a few hours anyway.

After locking the door I went over to the refrigerator and got out a soda from the back, where it was the coldest. I took a drink. The sodas here weren't as sweet as in Heita. Zero-zero and I preferred the ones here, but Ninety-one thought they were bland. Everything in Burilmont seemed like a toned-down version of Heita. As long as it stays better than Goldsboro, I was fine.

A faint tapping drew my attention to the dinner table. Gold sat at one of the chairs, passively drumming his fingers on the polished wood while looking over the room. He wore a shiny gold suit that looked to be made of silk. The buttons and lapels were a deep black. He had on a white button-up underneath and a black tie. His hair was neatly braided and laying over the side of his shoulder. His yellow snake was coiled loosely around his neck, watching me.

“How did you get in here?”

“My sister and I can do many things. Finding where our little players live and getting inside is only one of them.” Smiling, he turned his golden eyes to me and looked me over. I was still in my pajamas. “Orientation starts in an hour. You should get dressed in something suitable.”

“I don’t want to play your game.”

He set his elbows on the table and rested his head on the back of his heads. “Why not? I promise it will be interesting. Far better than sitting around watching the birds fly by.”

“How long have you been in here?”

He laughed, “It was just a guess, but regardless, we need to get going. A host should never be late to their own event.”

“Why does it matter if I play or not? There must be other people who want to compete for your money.”

“Yes, but we’ve never had a player with a pet dragon. You said that he led you to us, are you curious as to why?”

“No.”

He sighed and rolled his neck. “You can’t be convinced with money. Then how about something else?”

“I don’t want anything but you out of my home.”

“Well, that isn’t very friendly,” he said while pulling his face into a mock frown. “We’ve done some research on you, Sol. There’s next to nothing about you here, as if you just showed up one day.”

“What’s your point?”

“Did you know that travel between cities isn’t common anymore. It used to be, but that changed after a certain event. But that is neither here nor there, the point is, very few people move out of their own city. And I’m sure you know why, right?” I didn't respond. “Oh, you know. Unless you don’t”

“Just tell me what you mean.”

“How did you end up so boring?” He said with a dramatic sigh that I chose to ignore. “You’ve been outside Burilmont. You’ve seen how different other places can be. Do you think that’s normal? Your little dragon isn’t normal.”

“What do you know about Hue?”

“I know enough to tell you that he brought you to us for a reason.”

“How could you possibly know anything like that?” I challenged.

“If you want to find out, then you’ll have to earn it. Come with me and play our game,” Gold said smiling.

“No. I’m not that easily convinced.”

“Alright, alright. I’ve got something better.” Gold said as he stood from his seat. He tapped two fingers on the table and his snake began to glow a bright yellow. Her body shifted and reformed. When the light faded, the snake now looked like a dragon. One that was similar to Hue but twice as large. She stretched her newly formed limbs, before shaking herself. “Do I have your attention now?”

“What is she?”

“Adonis is the same as Hue. If you want to find out what he is, then you are going to have to come with me.”

I looked at Adonis and then back at him, before shaking my head. “I’m not putting my life in danger for this.”

“I should have known that you’d be stubborn,” Gold mutter more to himself than me. “Alright, I can promise that neither you nor Hue will get hurt during the game. I can’t necessarily promise that the other contestants might not take a swing at you, but I bet you’ve handled worse.”

“Why do you want me to play? What do you want from me?”

“So many questions. ” He walked around the table, petting Adonis as he went “I can’t tell you everything, but let’s just say that it is a sort of test.”

“A test for what?”

“That, I am not allowed to answer.” He walked forward and set his hand on my shoulder. “Unless you not only play but win our game.”

“If I do decide to participate,” he was already smiling, “and change my mind midway through, then what happens?”

“If that does happen, then I suppose we will have to cross that bridge when we get to it.”

“Can I drop out if I choose to?” I asked again.

He patted my shoulder and looked towards the clock on the wall. “Dropouts aren’t allowed. But if you happen to lose around, it would be unfair to the other players to allow you to stay in the game.”

I took a breath. “Okay.”

Gold partially turned his head back toward me. A smile was already forming. “Okay?”

“I’ll play-”

“Yes!”

“Just until you tell me what I want to know,” I clarified.

“Oh, but once you hear what I have to say, you’ll only want to know more.”

“Just let me get dressed,” I said as I began making my way to my room.

“Since we’re heading the same way, I might as well drive you,” I glanced back to see him, sitting back at the table and petting Adonis. The last thing I wanted to do was get into a car with him. but if he was going to harm me, he would have done it when he stunk into the apartment.


	4. Chapter 4

“How did you get into my apartment?” I asked as I followed Gold out of the building. Adonis had returned to her snake form and was coiled around his neck.

Hue was laying in my backpack, along with a few other things I brought. I tried to ask Gold what I would need for the competition, but he said that telling me would be cheating. So I ended up bringing anything I’d take with me on a normal day out. Maybe today was just an orientation and we didn’t have to do anything today. If we did I hoped that it wouldn’t be anything extreme.

“I walked through the door,” He responded plainly. I’ll decide to assume that he used the glasses to make himself invisible. Gold seemed like the type of person to keep secrets just for the fun of it. “Alright let’s go.”

We stopped at a fancy black, four-door car that sat near the front of the apartment parking lot. It looked newly washed. I could see my reflection in the side of it.

“I can take the bus,” I told him.

Gold unlocked the car. “You won't make it in time if you do that. You can’t play if you’re late.”

This information better be worth it, I thought to myself as I got into the car. I set my backpack in my lap and opened it a little so that Hue could look out the window. Normally, he wouldn’t pass on the chance to do so. But he took one glance at Adonis and curled up in the bag. Was he afraid of her? She hardly even acknowledged him. Was he shy around other dragons?

Before getting in the car himself, Gold held out his hand. The small grey bird from before flew down and landed on it. "There you are, Nyx."

Gold let the bird inside the car, where it went to the back seat. A grey light overtook its body as it transformed. When the light faded, a sleek grey cat laid across the black fabric seats. It watched me with pale eyes.

“How many of them are there?” I asked.

“I wonder that myself sometimes,” Gold said as he started the car. I wasn’t sure if that was an honest response or not.

The Alston hotel was a grand hotel that was as wide as it was tall. It must have stood at least fourth floors tall. The outside was white, with a majority of the walls made up of windows. The building wasn’t traditionally designed. It had, what looked to be walkways, at different levels going around the sides. The hotel’s name was spelled out in large letters on one side. At the front stood a twenty-foot tall fountain, that sprayed up water up and into the crystal clear pool around it.

Gold pulled under a large half-circle covering, where a valet came to take the car. Looking around, I felt very out of place. Everyone else, guests and staff alike, were dressed professionally. Gold’s clothing seemed unnecessary before, but here he looked almost like everyone else. Meanwhile, I was here in jeans and a shirt with the logo of something I’d never heard of before. I didn’t bother to look around to meet all of the glances that came in my direction. They also could have been looking at Adonis or Nyx, who was cradled in Gold's arm.

I followed him to an elevator that took us up to the thirty-first floor. There, we followed a long hallway until we reached a brown door. Next to it was a metal sign with the words 'conference room C'. There weren't any signs around or leading up to the door.

"How was any supposed to find this?" I asked.

"It's just another part of the game," Gold remarked.

"Why do you care so much about this game?"

"I can't answer that, or any other questions unless you win a game round. From here to the end of the game; we are strangers."

I was confused. "We are strangers to each other."

"Exactly," Gold said with a wink. "Anyway, I'm going to meet up with Silver. For now, just go in and wait for us to start the game. Maybe get to know the other players, but don't tell anyone about us meeting the other night or today."

"Okay." I hadn't intended on telling anyone either way.

Once Gold had left, I took a moment to assure myself that I did want to do this. That I was willing to participate in this game in order to learn more about Hue and why the world is so odd. I wanted to do this and when I decided that I was done, I was able to leave freely. With this solidified, I reached out and pulled open the doors.

Inside, there were several chairs set up around the sides of the room, allowing for plenty of to walk in the middle. There were about nearly a dozen people sitting sparsely around. About half looked up when I entered, I refused to meet their eyes. I did my best to brush it off as I took a that was too close to anyone and sat with my backpack in my lap. After a moment, I glanced up to look around just as someone came and sat next to me.

"I was worried that you weren't going to show up," Quince said in a low voice. I still wasn't in the mood to deal with here. "I tried looking for you by that shopping center."

"Why?"

"So that we can come up with a plan to win," she whispered. I glanced down and saw that she was wearing a long-sleeved shirt to cover up her bandaged arm.

“I already told you that I don’t care about that.”

“Then why are you here?” I don’t answer. With a huff, she crossed her arms and leaned back. “I’ll just assume that one of them strong-armed you into coming here.”

The silence of the room only broke with the occasional soft murmur. I took the time to glance around at the people who I would be competing against. Everyone looked so different. Some were dressed nicely while others, the younger ones, were dressed just as casually as I was. There didn’t seem to be a particular age range between all of us. There weren’t any children, but there seemed to be a few that could be in their sixties.

There was a couple and a pair of twins who were whispering to each other. A large man sat on the far end of the room. His arms were crossed and he sat with his back straight as he stared at the floor. There was a young, blonde-haired girl who didn’t look old enough to drive. She had a small brown curly-haired dog sitting in her lap. Gold had insisted at Hue had to play, had he or Silver done the same to this girl? What was the point of having a dog participate in this game? Was it able to transform too?

There was a large, round bald man who sat near the middle of the room. He had a grey, near black, pinstripe suit and black dress shoes. He sat with his hand resting on his knees. There was a jeweled ring on each of his fingers and a large, gold watch on both wrists. He was older, maybe in his fifties, and had a deep-set frown on his face. I dropped my gaze when he looked in my direction.

The door to my left opened. I didn’t intend to look up until I felt Hue shift inside the backpack. He had been still the entire time. I looked up to see Gold and Silver walk into the room. As before, Adonis was comfortably wrapped around Gold’s neck. At Silver’s side was a large dog with short shiny, grey fur and familiar pale eyes. She carried a brown paper bag in her mouth. While the Gold and Silver made their way to the back of the room, I noticed that the others had lost interest. None of them knew who they were.

"Hello, and welcome," Silver said regaining everyone's attention. "I would like to thank you for coming to our game. We are your hosts. My name is Silver and this is my brother Gold.

"Just to make sure that everyone here is supposed to be here, we're going to need each team to show us the glasses that you all have found."

There were shuffling sounds as most of us pulled out the glasses out of bags, purses, and pockets. When we'd all proved that we'd earned our way here, Silver smiled. "Good. In that case, why don't we start off by all of you introduce yourselves."

She gestured to the person nearest to her right. It was a couple; Ernest and Sandra Larson. The man had a darker skin tone and short black hair. His wife was lighter in tone. Quince and I introduced ourselves next. Then was an eastern woman by the name of Norma Hill went. Then two dark-skinned twins named Jenny and Allie todd.

Gale Morgan, an older woman with black and grey hair. She had green eyes were focused on Gold, and she had a light tone in her voice as she spoke. Lloyd Black was the name of the large suited man. His voice matched his expression. Next to him was Milford Ashe, another large man but he seemed more muscle than Lloyd. Judith Yates, an older woman with ginger-brown hair went next. Her voice was leveled and sounded disinterested. Lastly was the girl, Rosa Dunn. The dog sitting on her lap was named Peanut. Peanut sat curled close to Rosa as she watched everyone in the room.

"It is okay that I brought her?" Rosa asked.

"Of course," Silver assumed her "although she does technically could as a member of your group. So she is required to participate in each round like everyone else."

"Are there any other questions before we start?"

"Yes. I have one," one of the twins asked, "What are the rewards for winning?"

"The end of the game prize is a secret," Silver said. "As for each round: fourth place teams will receive fifty dollars. Third place will get one-hundred dollars. Second place gets two-hundred-fifty dollars and finally, first place gets five-hundred dollars. Fifth place and below will get nothing."

There was a murmur of approval from a few of the players. Some of them, including Quince, didn't seem as surprised by that.

"Any other questions?" Gold asked.

"What will we be doing in this game?" Ernest asked, "How do we play?"

"Each round will have a required task that needs to be completed. The tasks will be revealed when they come up so no one can prepare beforehand." Silver answered. "Any other questions?"

When no one spoke up Gold took the brown bag from Nyx's mouth. "In that case, we'll start passing the pagers. They'll be used to contact everyone on when and where each event will be taking place. Team leaders, or the people who first found the glasses, are responsible for keeping track of the pager."

With a look from Silver, Nyx turned and walked over to the person sitting nearest to her, which happened to be Rosa. Peanut visibly shrunk back. Nyx opened her mouth briefly to release one of the handles so that the front of the bag tilts forward. Rosa reached forward and into a bag to take out a pager. Nyx then went around and let everyone take a one from the bag.

I looked over the pager once we got ours. It looked more like an older version of a cell phone than a pager. It was a dark gray, almost black in color, and folded inward. The top section was a greenish-grey screen. The bottom section was a full keyboard. After a quick glance over, I found the power button and pressed it. A dim light lit up the screen as blocky black letters spelled out 'HELLO'.

"Before a round starts, we will give you a few hours notice with the pager. Afterward, a location and task will be provided. If necessary, a timeline as well," Gold explained.

"How often will there be a round?" Quince asked.

"They are going to be inconsistent due to arrangements and setup," Silver answered. "That will be all for right now. There will be a round starting in a few hours. So, if there aren't any other questions, you are all free to leave."

Inside the pager was a folded sheet of paper. Quince looked over my shoulder as I opened it up. It was a list of rules. They were pretty straightforward for the most part. Each team must have a pair of 3D glasses to participate in the game. Teams couldn't have any more than three players. Missing a meeting or a round is an automatic disqualification. Pets are allowed, but they count as team members. Did that mean I should have introduced Hue? Neither Silver or Gold seemed bothered that I didn't.

The next set of rules weren't as simple. The first was that any attempt to notify any type of law authority would result in disqualification and extreme punishment. What were they going to have us do that would make us even consider calling the police? Sabotage was only allowed during active gameplay. No outside help is allowed during these times. We were not only allowed to stop each other from succeeding but could get outside help during off times? That was almost concerning, but not as much as the next rule. No guns or weapons were allowed unless a specific round calls for them. Poison gases and explosives were also banned. Non-traceable pills are recommended.

I glanced up from the paper and looked at the other players. Some were looking over their own rule list. None of them seemed the slightest bit unnerved as I felt. Were games like this normal in Burilmont? Was something like this expected? No, this had to be strange. Why else would this be so secretive?

I dropped the pager and paper in my bag and left with the others. Quince followed me out and we shared an elevator with a few other players on the way down. None of us spoke amongst each other. The energy around these people felt less casual than it did in the meeting room. Maybe it was my imagination, maybe not. It didn’t matter when we all stepped out of the elevator and went our separate ways. Once outside, I took out my phone to find my way back to the apartment. I’ve only passed through this area of the city a few times before while riding with Ninety-one or Zero-zero.

“We need to talk,” Quince said as she walks next to me.

“Why?”

She gave a short irritated sighed. I didn’t need to look at her to know that she rolled her eyes. “We need to come up with a strategy on how to win.”

“We don’t even know what they are going to have us do. How do you expect to plan for something that you don’t even know about yet?”

She let out another sigh. “It isn’t just the activities that we have to prepare for. The people that we’re going to play against are dangerous. We need to be ready for anything they throw at us. You saw that list. They are allowed to stop off from winning and literally poison us if they wanted to. These people are dangerous.”

I stopped walking. “The rule about weapons was worrying. I’ll admit that. But none of those people looked like killers. At best they would be a minor obstacle.”

“You don’t know that for certain. What about that man in the black suit? He looked like a mob boss.” I assumed that was a well-know term, so I didn’t tell her that I had no idea what that was. “And there also that man who looks like he is in the military. Or at the very least trains like one.”

“There is also an old couple and a kid with a dog. There were a lot of different people there. The only task for entry was to find a pair of glasses that were hidden somewhere in the city right? What is your point?”

“My point is that we need to be prepared for the worst-case scenario. Which is that everyone else playing this game is going to try to kill us. Even if you don’t believe me, fine. But those rules aren’t there for no reason. It states which kind of weapons would and couldn’t be used and when. It’s too specific to be a coincidence.”

She made a decent point. Which made me regret agreeing to join this game all the more. “Okay. What is your plan?”

“Good, you’re on board,” Quince said with relief in her voice. “Come on. Let’s find a place to sit down and talk.”

Without a word, I relented and followed her away from the hotel, down a few blocks and to a small pizza restaurant. There was a long buffet inside that ran along one wall. On the far end of the large single room was a small arcade area. It all looked like it was more for kids than people in the early twenties. I passed Quince a confused look as she paid for both of us to get inside, but she said nothing until we took a seat at a booth.

“Why here?” I asked her.

“It’s cheap food and I doubt any of those other people would dare to even step foot in a place like this.”

“Why would it matter if they did?” I asked as a kid, maybe six or seven in age, ran by our table to get to the arcade area.

“Despite what those people there pretended to be, I know for a fact that this game is common with wealthy people. At least some of them art pretending so that we’ll let our guard down around them. They don’t want us to think that they are a threat so we’ll ignore them and focus on the others.”

“How do you even know this?” I asked.

“I told, I researched all of this.”

“How? Gold and Silver seem very secretive about all of this. It is even a clause in their rules.”

“That’s only about telling the police. There is nothing about regular people.”

“So you knew someone who played this game before.” I guessed.

“Yeah. I did.”

“Then why didn’t you try to join the game with them? Why’d you have to drag me into this?”

“You dragged yourself into it when you showed up at that building and got caught. That’s on you.”

“That doesn’t explain why you didn’t join with this person who knows about the game,” I said, changing the subject.

“They don’t allow returning players,” Quince said simply. Before I ask another question, she stood up from the booth. “Let’s get some food before people start to think that we’re weird or something.”

Was the entire competition going to be like this with her? She wanted me to trust her word on what she was telling me, but she was also dodging questions when I wanted to know more. Why was she so defensive? She says that this game is dangerous and that we can die. Fine. After seeing what happened several nights back, I’ll believe that it might get dangerous. But these were just people. I’ve dealt with worse.

We both returned to the booth with a plate full of pizza each. I set one of my slices on a pile of napkins and set it near the wall, where Hue sat inside of my backpack. He reached his head out and pulled the slice inside. I was sure the inside of the bag was going to be full of grease in no time.

“What kind of plan do you have in mind?” I asked.

“There is a strong chance that at one point during the game one of the other players is going to come to us to make a deal,” she said with confidence. “They are either going to try and pay us off to quit, which we can’t do regardless, or to work with them. If the second option happens, we can use that to our advantage. They’ll have money and resources that we can use to help ourselves.”

“What if that doesn’t happen?”

“It will. You know how arrogant rich people are, they think anyone who doesn’t have six or seven figures to their name is a bunch of rats scrambling over themselves. Once they find out that we aren’t like them, they’ll flash their money at us and expect us to bend. We can use that to our advantage.”

I had never met a wealthy person before and didn’t know the overall impression of them was so poor. I’d things on TV but had assumed that it was just an exaggeration. I guess knowing their attitude would be helpful going forward. “What about the people who aren’t like that.”

“If they don’t make similar deals with the other rich people, then they’ll probably come to us. Solidarity in the common man. It’ll basically be the same, just without the added condescension.”

“You seem really sure of this,” I said while looking over my pizza that was getting cold. “The person you knew who played this game. How far did they get into it?”

“They got pretty far in,” she answered hesitantly. “Finally three teams.”

“What did they have to do when they played?”

She shook her head. “They wouldn’t tell me that. Whatever it was, they seemed kind of ashamed of it. As if they thought I would get upset if they told me. I never got a chance to ask them why.”

I wanted to ask why she couldn’t just ask them now but felt that it was better to drop the subject. If I asked too much, she might shut down again and we’d be back where we’d started. So instead, I ate my pizza and set my mind to guessing what we would have to do. Silver said that the first round would be a few hours. Hopefully, it wouldn’t be anything too extreme. If I was lucky, it would end before Ninety-one and Zero-zero got home.


	5. Chapter 5

'Head to the nearest designer clothing store nearest to you.'

When the pager eventually buzzed I had felt nothing but nerves as I took it out of my bag. After wiping off the pizza grease and flipping it open, I was surprised to see what the blocky letters spelled out. Turning it over, I showed the message to Quince.

Despite her knowledge of the game, she looked confused. When she said that she did know about the activities within the game, she had been completely honest. I didn't know if that was reassuring or not.

Quince seemed to know the area pretty well, so I let her lead me through the streets. Surprisingly, the kid's pizza restaurant wasn't too far from a decent-sized shopping district. There weren't just shops for clothing there. The district also had some for furniture, large kitchen appliances, small appliances, computer and console games, toys and things in between. Only enough we didn't stop at any of the clothing stores. They all seemed like good enough places.

“Why don’t we go in here?” I asked while gesturing to one of the stores.

She only shook her head. “These places aren’t good enough. We need a designer store. We’re going to need someplace that is big and fancy and expensive and has strange-looking clothes that no normal person would ever wear.”

Fashion wasn’t something that I had much of a concept of. Complex designs and colors didn’t appeal to me. Mostly because I didn't see the reason why something like that was necessary.

After a short while, we arrived at a wide two-story building. The outside was painted white with a sign set between the first and second floors. The lettering on the sign was so curly slanted font that it was illegible. The inside was only visible through the bottom floor. Through the large windows, we could see the rows and rows and clothes. There were mostly suits and dresses inside, with a few shirts and pants about. Besides the building itself, I didn’t see what made this place any better than the ones we passed.

There weren’t many people around when we stepped inside. Those there were either dressed in similarly dressed clothing that was on display or wore a uniform of a dark grey shirt with black pants or shirt. The handful of those few who glanced up as we entered gave us looks that were a mix of confusion and distaste. It was clear that we weren’t wanted here.

“What now?” I asked Quince in a low voice.

“Let’s stay together and look around. Pretend like you’re looking for something to buy. Maybe we’ll find a hint or something.”

Together we moved to the nearest section of shirts and began sifting through them. Going by the assumption that we might need to find something in here, I did my best to keep close attention to anything on them. Color, pattern, fabric, prize. What part of it was important to notice? What if it wasn’t a shirt? Pants, dresses, jewelry, ties. It could have been anything, even the people who were also here.

I hoped it wasn’t any of the people. What if they wanted us to kill someone? I wouldn’t be able to do that? Besides, that would be too much for the first round.

I turned my attention back to looking through the clothes. Nothing about them stood out to me. I checked the tags for prices, sizes, and brand names. Still nothing. Quince and I moved on to a rack of fancy dress pants. There was even less to distinguish one from the other. This was quickly starting to look like a lost cause. I couldn't tell Quince was losing faith is this idea as well. She had begun spending less time looking over the clothes. I was probably doing the same, though I tried to keep each search careful and consistent.

“Excuse me.” The two of us looked up to see a blonde woman in a black staff uniform standing near us. She was peering at me. “I am going to have to ask that you leave your backpack in your car. They aren’t allowed in the store.”

“We don’t have a car,” I told her, thinking that maybe she would leave us be.

“We were dropped off,” Quince cut in.

She briefly looked to Quince before directing her attention back towards me. “Then I will need to leave. Sorry, but it is the store’s policy.”

Quince gave me a side glance before speaking. “Isn’t there somewhere you could put it while we wait?”

“We can’t be held responsible for customer’s personal belongings,” the woman answered plainly.

She was smiling, but I could tell it was forced. She just wanted us gone. I didn't understand why but had no other choice but to do as she said.

"Alright," I sad before turning to Quince, "I'll be right back."

I stepped around the woman, who watched me as I went, and headed for the exit. I walked around the building until I found a side door. It wasn't to the clothing store, but that didn't matter. I slipped off my bag and opened it up. Hue crawled out and onto my shoulders while I dig around for my keys and the pager. I debated whether or not to bring the glasses too. They might be helpful with completing whatever task that we would be given.

There were only three keys on my keyring. The first was for the van and the second to the apartment. The third was large than the others. It was white and looked to be made of wood. It looked like it belonged in one of these fairytale books I’d glanced over in the bookstore. I pointed it towards the side door. A glowing white dot appeared on the metal, that grew into a line that reached to the top and bottom of the door.

The two sections slide open to reveal a large hexagonal room lined with bookshelves. The one just to the right of the door was filled with canned food, water bottles, pillows, blankets, and extra clothing. I had gathered it all back when I was sure I would have to hide in the library from the Enforcers back in Goldsboro. Now I wasn’t sure what to do with it all.

I also had a few books and a stuffed rabbit from Heita sitting on the next shelf over. I’d put them in shortly before leaving Heita with Ninety-one and Zero-zero. I still haven’t told them about the library. I set my backpack inside, just to the side of the door.

Reaching to my shoulders, I pulled Hue off and set him on the floor next to my bag. "Stay here."

I close the door and return to the store. The woman from before was standing at the checkout counter with another coworker, they both eyed me as I walked in. Quince was still rummaging through the shirts but had moved down the lone a bit when I rejoined her.

"They are getting suspicious of us," Quince said in a low voice.

"Why?" I asked, not understanding, "We're just looking around. Isn't that how most people shop?"

"Sometimes, but not in a place like this. We clearly don't look like we belong here and all this looking around is making them think that we're going to steal something."

That's why I couldn't have my bag in here? They thought I was going to take something? Was crime that common here? I knew it was worse than Heita, but I wouldn't have suspected it would be that bad. In the last several days I was mugged and saw two people shoot each other, so I shouldn't have been that surprised. I should check on what types of crimes are the most frequent here.

"Did you find anything that we might need?" I asked her, mentally changing the subject for myself.

"No." her low tone is full of irritation. "It would be easier if we knew what we were looking for. How much longer is it going to be until they tell us what we should do?"

I reached into my pocket and pulled out the pager. Nothing new had come up. The only thing that may have been useful was that there was a place, similar to a folder on a computer, where I could view the last message sent to us.

"Why'd you bring the glasses?" she asked.

I took them from my head and looked them over. "I don't know, I thought that they might help us find something."

I slipped them off my face as briefly gazed around the room. The overlapping red and blue were just as disorienting to look at as before. Unfortunately, the glasses didn't reveal any writing or anything else that would be helpful. In fact, there was nothing on the walls at all.

"Do you see anything?" Quince asked.

"No," I replied.

"Let's go look upstairs," Quince suggested. "Maybe we'll have better luck out there."

I followed her to a flight of carper covered stairs that sat a few feet passed the checkout counter. The second floor was just as large as the first, but filled with shoes and other footwear instead of clothing. There was no writing here either. Just more customers and employees. I pushed the glasses up to my face. This was hopeless without a clue.

"Should we try the floor above?" I asked.

"No, let's look around here a bit first," she said before walked forward, heading over to a section of women's dress shoes. "We should try a few on too."

I was grateful she hadn't chosen to go near the heels. Zero-zero had convinced me to try a pair on once when the two of us were out shopping for new clothes. I'd told him that I'd never seen shoes like them before. He had come back with the tallest pair he could find and told me to try them on. They looked to be made of thick plastic and had a point at the tie that almost looked dangerous. Zero-zero had laughed when I refused to wear them. Good instincts, he'd said.

I strolled down a row of shoes looking for anything that might interest me. Quince was as few aisles overlooking through a more colorful collection than the blacks and browns I was gazing over. All of the shoes around me were slip one that had a heel. I'd never worn shoes like before. I'd only worn sneakers.

I was considered going over to the men's section to see if there might have been anything better over there when a buzzing against my leg caught my attention. I took the pager from my pocket and flipped it open.

'Successful 'steal' $10,000 worth of clothing. Any team that gets 'caught' or does not meet the amount required is disqualified.' I frowned at the words. They want us to steal? How could anyone even get away with that much money worth of clothing anyway? As I considered how we could possibly accomplish this, Quince came up to me. Wordlessly, I showed her the pager.

"They can't be serious," she said exasperated but in a low tone so that no one else would overhear. "Why is it in quotes?"

"Maybe that us their way of saying that we won't be committing a real crime when we do take the clothes," I offered.

Quince narrowed her eyes at the floor as she mutters, "We need to think of a plan."

"You haven't done anything like this before?" I asked.

"No. Why would you think that?" She asked sounding offended. After a moment she turned away from me. Her voice drops even lower when she speaks again "I'm not a thief. What happened with you was a one-time thing. I hadn't planned on it either. I saw a chance and I took it."

I said nothing in res as I looked around the room. I don't think I could have stolen from someone like she did. Granted, I have stolen before. Once in Goldsboro, but everything was so chaotic it hardly mattered. I was also talking grom Uni-Cell. They had taken enough from me and everyone else who lived there.

The other time was while in Heita when I was following a group of Masked around. They had gotten into a convenience store and I'd taken a few snacks from the shelves. While I was doing so, some workers had gotten trapped turned into Masked. Even if I hadn't been half-drunk at the time, I probably would not have been able to help them.

Stealing from here would be so easy. There was no city-wide destruction or roaming gang of Masked to clear the building. I would have to go about this like an experienced criminal.

But outside of the few books and TV segments, I didn't know anything about purposely committing a crime. I knew that the basic obstacles were any employees or other customers that could be watching, security guard, although I haven't seen any, and security cameras. Glancing up, I noticed that there were cameras in each corner of the room.

"If we're lucky, those are fake," Quince said, noticing me looking around. "If we're lucky and they are, then we still have to deal with the security tags. The only way to get them off is to use a device that's hidden behind the register. We'll never be able to get to it."

"This is fake. Maybe the security isn't as complex," I surmise.

Quince shook her head. "We can't bet on that. To be safe, we should take this as seriously as possible."

I nod before speaking. "Could we rip the tags off?"

"If the material is thin enough maybe, but that might set them off. Besides we still wouldn't be able to just walk out with that much money worth of clothes."

Walking out won't work, then maybe hiding them will. Suddenly, that idea hits me like a falling brick. I can use the library. No security sensors, no getting pass the employees. I just have to open the door and put them in.

"I know how we can do this," I say. My voice sounding excited. I can't believe it wasn't the first thing I thought of. "I just need a door."

Quince looked at me confused. "Do you mean like a severed door?"

"No, a regular one. I just need to get to one and I get the clothes for us."

"All the doors other than the entrance will either be locked or have an alarm on it."

"That won't matter as long as there isn't anyone else around." If anyone saw me open the library we won't be able to just walk out. Or explain. "It needs to be one away from the cameras."

After a moment of thought, she offered a suggestion. "The bathrooms or the changing rooms are the best bet. They probably won't let us take the clothes in the bathrooms, though."

"Okay," I said with a nod. "Let's go downstairs."

"We should see what's upstairs first."

Strangely the third floor was larger than the other two. The back was pushed further out, making it twice the size as the lower floors. It was split into two sections. The first and front half was designed more akin to a jewelry store. Large metal and glass cases lined the floor. Gold, silver and gems alike shined under the bright lighting. Everything was separated into sections. Necklaces, earrings, rings, bands, watches, and things in between. I was glad that clothing was all we were tasked to get. It would have been much harder to simply walk off with something an employee would have to get out.

The second area was similar to the first floor. It was filled with clothes, but the racks were small. They were more specifically separated. The clothing themselves looked more intricate. The designs were complex. With none of them anywhere near a copy to anything around it. Each article was unique, specially designed for anyone willing to pay for it.

There were fewer people up here. From what I could see when we walked in, there were three employees around. Two of them were moving around, ensuring that everything was in order. The other was speaking with a customer.

Quince and I only made it a few steps in when one of them came up two us. She was an older woman with grey streaks in her dark brown hair. There were wrinkles around her eyes and mouth. Her green-grey eyes peered down at us as if she knew why we were here.

"Hello. How can I help the both of you?" The undertone of her voice demanded that we get out of her store. Unlike the woman downstairs, this one had a lot less tolerance for our presence.

"Um, No. We're just looking around for right now," Quince said.

"Are you looking for something to attend an event in?" The woman pressed. "A wedding, perhaps?"

"No. We're just looking for something formal," Quince tried to explain.

"We have plenty of formal outfits on the first floor. However, if you are searching for a specific style or design, I will be able to you out easily."

"I don't know what I am looking for yet," Quince pushed back. "Not any specifics, anyway."

If you tell me which types of styles you normally wear, I can go by that. Colors would help also. What brands do you typically buy from?" the woman continued. Quince shifted, getting annoyed. It was clear the woman had no intention of leaving us alone. When she turned to me, I wanted to take a step back. "What about you? What fits your tastes? Would you prefer a fitted suit or a dress? A blouse maybe?"

"I-" I had no idea what to say. I didn't have much of a chance to think of an answer before Quince turned around and grabbed my arm.

"I would appreciate it if you would just let us look at our own pace, thank you," Quince said loudly.

Without looking, I could feel the eyes of the other two workers on us, but it soon disappeared as we left that section of the store. We stopped by the stairs, out of sight from everyone but the cameras. "They aren't going to leave us alone. We need a distraction."

"Like what?" I asked. The staff here was already suspicious of us. If we tried anything they'd probably be into us instantly.

She frowned at the floor for a moment. Anger burning in her eyes. "We're already wasted a lot of time here. We don't know if there is a set limit or how much time we have left. It could be until the end of the day. Or it might be fifteen minutes from now. We need to act fast. You said you just need a door and a cleared room, right?"

I nodded. "What do you have in mind?"

"I'm going to start a fire."

"What?" She couldn't have been serious."

"It's the only way we're going to get this done and it's our best option," she explained. "As soon as it starts the fire alarm will go off and people will leave. The smoke will hide you from the camera and we can get out too. As long as we’re fast we should be fine."

Something drastic didn't feel worth winning a game. Especially if someone got hurt. "That's too dangerous. It's just a game."

"It is not just-" Quince stopped herself. With gritted teeth, she took a breath. "Look, you want to win this too right? Well, this is the kind of thing we are going to have to do."

"It isn't worth hurting people. Someone could die."

"No one is going to get hurt," she protested. "There's hardly anyone un here, so they'll get out fast. Besides, the sprinklers will make sure it doesn't get too out of control."

"You'd still destroy the building."

"Only some parts of it. Whoever owns it has the money to fix anything burned," Quince sighed. "This is what the game is like, okay. We might have to do things like this to win. The other players are doing it too. You saw what happened the other night and still wanted to play, why back out because of this?"

I had chosen to play this game knowing that things could get dangerous. But being here and actually having to do something like help start a fire just so we could steal a few clothes. No, ten-thousand dollars worth of clothes. After seeing how suspicious that older woman was, I knew they weren't in on the game. These people were just doing their job and were unlucky enough to be here when we chose this place.

I didn't want to do this, but I wanted to play. I wanted to know what Gold could tell me about Hue and about the world. I wanted to know why everything is the way it is. I want to understand. Maybe all of this would be worth it in the end. Not to the people here. Not to the people I might affect later on. Just to me. It was selfish. I knew that. Maybe that made me a bad person. I've done and caused some bad this before, unintentionally, but still bad. Maybe I could live with a few more bad things. Maybe I wouldn't, I end up a better person. There was no way to know. But today I would be a selfish person. If anything, for curiosity alone.

"Okay," I said eventually. "What do you need me to do."


	6. Chapter 6

Quince had me go back to the jewelry area while she went downstairs. My signal to start was the fire alarm. Meanwhile, I merely browsed through the watches. My mind was focused on the plan. My part was simple. Just open the library and throw in as many clothes as I could, then leave. It wasn't anything difficult, but that didn't make the pressure of it all any lesser.

I tried to trivialize it in my head. It was nothing to open the library. That was the first thing I'd do. Find a door and know where I needed to head and what my immediate work area was. Next, was just taking the clothes and closing the door. Simple and to the point. It really only had three steps.

Open the door. Put in the clothes. Close the door.

Nothing to second guess or extra things to account for. Except maybe the fire, but Quince said it wouldn't be a big deal. The sprinklers should keep it low. But if it was too low then what would happen?

I forced myself to focus back on the watches. I picked one up. It was made of some kind of black metal, with a white ring around the small clock. The numbers were white on the black circle.

I turned over the dark box the watch sat inside. It was priced at $800. I almost wished we could be taking the jewelry instead. If the clothes in the other room are anywhere near this price range, it wouldn’t take too many clothes to get up to the amount we needed.

I moved to set the watch down when a blaring siren pulsed through the store. Near the corner of the ceiling as whit flight flashed. The few customers and employees around looked up in confusion. None of them moved. For a hand full of moments I was worried that they would ignore it. Or worse, the plan hadn’t worked. Maybe Quince had been caught and the fire hadn’t burned enough? What if it had been found early and put out? Worry gripped my chest.

It didn’t fade even when the smell of smoke began to feel the room. The dark air slowly poured out from the stairwell. It reached up to the ceiling. With each flash of the emergency light, the smoke thickened.

My gripe on the watched tightened as people began fleeing from the room. They passed the stairs and headed into the clothing area. I jumped when a passing employee grabbed my arm and pulled me along. I ignored the bad feeling in my gut and followed the group.

At the far end of the other room was a section of wall free of any clothing. In it was a white door with the words ‘fire exit’ printed in bright red text. I slowed my pace while I watched everyone file through the door and go down the stairs beyond. No one lingered by the door to make sure everyone was escaping through. I took a few steps into the stairwell, just far enough that I was out of sight of the cameras. I looked around, there weren’t in cameras in here.

I waited and watched as the smoke thickened and filled the room. Quince has said that she would start on the second floor, with a fire in the bathroom. That way the people there and on the first floor would have time to get out. She would do the first floor next, making sure that that one was larger. If the fire department arrived too early, they wouldn’t get up here for a while. Both fires need to be big enough to make smoke to obscure the cameras, but small enough to be manageable.

It didn’t take long before I was sure the cameras wouldn’t be able to see me clearly. I stepped back into the room. I then pulled the door closed and opened up the library.

Without a second guess, I tossed the watch I was still holding inside. The sound of it clattering to the floor awoke Hue, who had been resting on a shelf. Hue flew toward me but hesitated when he noticed the smoke. That was fine, I didn’t need him getting lost in all this mess anyway. I grabbed the first arm full of clothes nearest to me and practically dragged them into the library. I didn’t bother to look at the prices. It was all expensive. As long as I got enough of it we would be fine.

The smoke was steadily getting thicker. It was starting to my eyes and throat. How far had it spread by now? How bad would it get in the end? Hopefully, the smoke far outweighed the flame. It was getting hard to breath in the store. Thankfully the smoke didn’t enter the library. Another question I had for Gold. I would need to create a list of them.

My arms were getting tired from dragging the clothes. They were much heavier than I anticipated. I didn’t want to let up on how much I carried in one go. There was no way to know how close or how far I was to the goal. So I kept going. The only relief coming with the breath of fresh air I got when I went to add onto the pile of clothes. I had already cleared a rack and most of a second one. But was it enough? The last thing I wanted to too was to go so far just to fail.

Eventually, I could see the flames for the fire flicker near the stairs. Not long after, I could hear the sound of sirens outside the building. I had no choice but to be finished. With a deep breath within the library, I stepped out and closed the door.

The exit opened up to the side of the building. To my left, on the street, I could see the flashing lights to two fire trucks, their sirens turned off. I could hear the rushing spray of a hose putting out the flames.

“Hey?” I turned around, to see Quince standing in the shadow of the building. She took a quick glance toward the street before waving me toward her. “Let's get out of here. They’re going to come through here to get inside.”

“Why?” I asked while I followed her down the back of the building. There was a chain-link fence that had a corner broken and bent upward to create an entryway. We went through it.

“They are going to check if anyone is still inside,” She said. “You’re lucky you came out when you did.”

“Yeah.” I glanced back to see a group of firefighters coming around the corner of the building. I doubted they saw us as we left the alleyway. The fading sound of water forced at thought into my head. “The sprinklers never came on.”

“I turned them off,” Quince said as she glanced around us. People on the street were gathering to watch the rising smoke from the building.

“Why?” That wasn’t part of the plan. At least, she didn’t mention it to me.

She shrugged. "The maintenance door happened to be left open and I took the opportunity. We needed as much time as we could get. We probably wouldn't have been able to make it otherwise. I got lucky."

I didn't share her apathy. I wanted to argue with her that it was wrong to do that. That someone could have been killed. The building was probably going to be ruined. But I didn’t have the energy. Between moving all the clothes and the thick smell of smoke in my nose, I was too drained to do anything but walk.

“The firefighters are going to turn it back on anyway,” Quince added. It didn’t make me feel any better. When she realized that I wasn’t willing to make a big deal out of it, she changed the subject. “Where are the clothes.”

“I got them,” I said, tiredly. “I just need to get to a door and I can get them. I don’t know how much they are all worth, though.”

“We can add up the price tags later.” Soon enough we stopped at a bench a few blocks away from the fire. The smoke had thinned out but was still steadily rising.

“How did you start to fire anyway?” I asked.

“I always keep mase with me. It’s pretty flammable. Using that and a lighter, it wasn’t hard.” I nodded. How did she even know that it would work? Where do you learn something like that? Why would anyone? “Can you explain this door thing to me?”

I hesitated. I hadn’t shown it to Ninety-one or Zero-zero, there was no way I was going to trust her with something like that. I shook my head. “We need to get someplace where we can count the clothes.”

Quince stared at me as if she wanted to say something, but turned her head. “We can go to my place if you want. It isn’t much, but it’s private.”

I wasn’t keen on the idea of following Quince to her home, but she wanted to win the game more than anything. Without me, she couldn’t even participate. “Okay.”

“Alright,” she said standing. I stood to follow her when she stopped me. “Wait. What about your pet? Where’d he go?”

“Hue is with the clothes,” I answered simply. She waited for more of an explanation. When she knew I wasn’t going to give one, she sighed and began leading me to her home.

We took a bus most of the way there. She didn’t live too far from me. Her apartments didn’t look as well kept as the one I lived at. The building was only four floors high. The once blue paint was faded and dirty. There were several large areas where it had fallen away. There was a wooden fence around the complex that had boards broken away from it in several places.

As we crossed the parking lot, I noticed a shallow pile of glass ear a parking lot. From off somewhere, thumping music played. Not too far away small kids played with a ball in a small sand area, while two adults sat down chatting on the steps that led to the second floor. I had never been to a place like this before. It was interesting.

Quince lead me up the nearby steps to the third floor. Her apartment was a few doors down from them. The inside was slightly larger than my apartment in Goldsboro. The few furniture looked old and worn.

There was a couch pushed against the right wall. It was a light brown in color. The cushions were sunken in and the fabric armrests were worn down. In front of it sat a small table with a can of soda on it. It looked to be made of thick plastic and had a lot of scratches on it. To the left was the kitchen. It was comprised of a small refrigerator, an oven and stove combo, and a few cabinets. There were a few dishes sitting on the counter. To the left of me, near the front wall was another door. It sat slightly open, revealing a small bathroom. The walls were mostly bare, except for a few photos.

“I have water and soda if you want anything to drink,” Quince offered as she moved to the kitchen.

“No thank you,” I said while drifting over towards one of the photos.

It was of a couple standing in front of a house. The house was a single story with a big yard. There was a bush of flowers under a window. The couple looked young, maybe a bit older than me and was smiling happily. The man had dark hair and a thin mustache like it hadn’t fully grown in yet. He had his arm around the brown-haired woman. She was pregnant. They both had the same darken skin tone as Quince. Her mother’s hair.

Parents were still a strange concept to me. To have someone personally raise you from the moment your life started until you were ready to be on your own. It was something Burilmont had that neither Heita or Goldsboro did. Heita had caretakers, but their role didn’t end at adulthood. It was a life long thing. I couldn’t help but wonder what it was like to know someone from before you were even able to remember things.

“You really like that picture,” Quince said flatly.

Did my staring come off as rude? Maybe I was being invasive. “These are your parents, right? What was it like growing up with them?”

I heard the couch creak as she sat on it. “Why do you ask? Your childhood probably wasn’t much different than mine.”

I couldn’t tell her that I came from a factory. That I was never a child before. “I don’t have parents. I’ve lived alone for most of my life.”

“Oh,” was all she said.

“Do they live here with you?” I asked.

“No,”

“Where did they move too?” Were they somewhere in the city? Gold said that is wasn’t common for most people to leave the city they were in, were their conditions to that?

“They’re dead.”

I regretted asking. “Sorry.”

I’d never known anyone to have known anyone who had died. Seth had died, but I hadn’t even known him a full week. Ninety-one and Zero-zero had lost people but did being a Masked make them dead. They definitely weren’t the people they were before and couldn’t come back. Did that still make them dead in a way?

“So how did you get the clothes out from your door?” Quince asked, thankfully changing the subject. “Do you need me to leave?”

“If you don’t mind, yes.”

She nodded and headed to the bathroom. “Alright, just knock on the door when you’re done.”

When the bathroom door was closed, I considered using it to open the library to make sure she wouldn’t come back in. But it seemed wrong to do that to someone in their own home. However, she did start a fire. What if she decided to take the key from me? I may have been a bit paranoid, but the library was worth protecting, even if there wasn’t much in it.

It was easier to take the clothes out of the library than to put them in. I mostly drug them across the floor. There were no specifications saying they had to be neat and clean. As soon as this round was over I was going to get rid of them. I hoped the next round would be less stressful and bothersome.

“Wow, that’s a lot more that I thought you’d get,” Quince said once she left the bathroom and looked over the pile. She was mostly focused on Hue who was lazily laying over the clothes. He watched her impassively.

“Is it too much?” I asked. The pile was giant per se, but it was a lot considering it was made out of clothes.

“Probably not. We’re going to have to count it all up and find out.” The day felt like it was growing longer.

Before starting, I helped Quince move the table unit it was pressed against the couch. Then, we each took one half of the pile began adding up all of the price tags. We decided that it was better to keep them attached to the clothes as proof that we had collected the right amount.

Even while using our phones to keep track of the numbers, the task of sifting through each one was time-consuming. All the while, my mind kept going back to the fire. I wasn’t used to feeling guilty. Especially, not over things I knew were clearly wrong. If I had known that the fire would get that bad, I’m not sure I still would have agreed to go through with it. I didn’t think anyone had gotten injured, but who could know? Maybe the fire would be on a news station later today and I could find out. Maybe then the guilt would be lessened.

“Do you live on your own?”

“What?” I asked, barely registering Quince’s question. When I looked back at her, she was still looking down at the tags in her hand.

“You said that you lived by yourself for most of your life? Do you live with people now? Like roommates or something?”

Roommates, I’ve heard of the word from T.V. before. Were Zero-zero and Ninety-one my roommates? Ninety-one said that we were more like a family. Was that different? We weren’t related and neither of them raised me. But they both looked after me for the most part. Even if I didn’t exactly need them too.

“I live with two men. We’re kind of like a family, but we are not related in any way.”

“Do you like it? More than being alone, I mean?”

I’ve never thought about that before. “I think so. We haven’t been together that long, so I guess I don’t know for sure. I’m not used to it for the most part. Compared to where I lived before, what I have now is much better.”

“How did you meet?”

“That is a long and hard story to explain,” I said.

“Yeah, I know what those are like,” she said softly. “I think everyone has one of those.”

“Can I ask about the house? The one in the picture. It seems very nice.”

“If you want to know why I don’t live there anymore, it’s because I can’t afford to. Not on my own.”

“Could you go back if you get enough money from playing this game?”

“No, someone else already lives there.”

We fell back into silence after that.

I stood and stretched my back. It had gone sore from keeping the same position for so long. It was sometime later and we had finished counting up the cost of each of our piles and adding them together. We had come up with $18,640 worth of clothing. Far over what we needed to gather.

“Do you think we won with all of this?” I asked.

“We have to,” Quince said smiling. “At the very least we’re still in for the next round.”

I dug in my pocket and pulled out the pager. “I’m surprised they haven’t announced the round has ended by now.”

“It is just the first activity. They might just be giving us some leeway.”

“What do we do now?” I asked.

“Wait until they tell us what to do next,” Quince said as she sat on the edge of the small table.

I checked my phone for the time. It would still be a few hours until Ninety-one and Zero-zero came home. I wanted to be back before they did. Mostly because I didn't want to lie to them about where I had been.


	7. Chapter 7

After two hours of waiting, Quince and I had left the apartment to eat at a nearby fast-food burger restaurant. There had been a T.V. set up on one wall. It was playing news coverage of the fire. There hadn’t been any deaths or injuries, thankfully. However, it only brought a small comfort. The building itself couldn’t be saved. An untold amount of clothes and money pt into that business had been lost. All the work put into making what it was, gone.

I couldn’t stop asking myself if it was really worth it. Each time I tried to push the thought down, I felt guilt. Not only for what I’ve done but because I was choosing to ignore it. If this what the rest of this game was going to be like, I didn’t think I could keep going for long. Not if I kept feeling like this.

I welcomed the disconnection from my thoughts when the pager finally buzzed. It was a bittersweet relief. It meant was to come.

'Come to 2834 Amory Blvd at 4 pm tonight.’

"That's all the way across town," Quince complained after searching the address on her phone.

While the news of the fire played I glanced at Quince to see her reaction. She didn’t seem nearly as bothered as I was. Yet, she also didn’t come across as completely unfazed either. Another small comfort.

Regardless, we left soon after. We rode a bus for most of the trip and arrived ten minutes before the meeting time. On the way, Quince stole a shopping cart from the edge of a parking lot. About a block or so away from the meeting place, we paused by an alley so I could retrieve the clothes from the library and put them into the cart. I was sure that we looked more than a little suspicious with so many expensive clothes. It wasn't the best way to present, but it was the best we had.

The place we were to meet with Gold and Silver was within a small shopping center. It was less extravagant than the hotel which fit me just fine. The only thing marking the former store was the address printed on the door. The vehicles parked in front were mixed with those parked in front of actual stores. It was hard to tell which belonged to any of the other players.

I almost felt embarrassed about walking win with the shopping cart, but that paled in comparison to the anxiousness that came over me when all of their eyes fell on us. I didn’t look up long enough to know who all was there.

The room was about the size of a small convenience store. Despite the size, everyone kept near the front, near the boarded windows. The floor was once a white and black checkerboard tile. It was no stained from use and broken up in several places. There were discolored rectangular sections where shelves once stood. The walls were an off-white color with graffiti spread all around.

This place was far from the high-class hotel. I doubted in normal circumstances none of these people wouldn't be anyway near a place like this. I knew I wouldn't.

Gold was alone among the players. He passed us a glance from where he stood near the middle of the room He was talking with, or rather being talked to the older woman, Gale, who was kept watching him back in the hotel. She had changed her clothes, now wearing a black, low cut sleeveless dress. Whatever she was telling him about, she was more interested in getting it out than hearing what input Gold might have had.

Quince and I found a place in a corner next to the covered glass to stand and wait. The other players had their clothes in various bags and suitcases. The girl with the dog, Rosa, I remember. She was leaning against the wall opposite the door and had two large black trash bags at her feet. Her small dog, Peanut, sat behind her leg, watched everyone with caution.

The poor thing was obliged to be here just like Hue. He was inside my backpack that sat on the bottom section under the main part of the cart. He was partially covered by a large dress so no one could see him sticking out of the open bag. I could only hope that he would behave.

Three more people came in while everyone waited for the end of the hour to come. The first was the older couple, who were each carrying large shopping bags. The other was Silver who entered just as the time turned to four. She locked the door behind herself before heading over to her brother. Gale excused herself before she reached him.

"We're Missing a few," Gold said to Silver. His voice wasn't low, as if he didn't care if we heard. "It was an easy task too."

She shrugged, uncaring, before addressing everyone. "My brother and I are going to begin counting up everyone's total. Afterward, we will be announcing the winners. This will take some time so get comfortable."

Quince and I sat on the floor by cart and waited as the siblings separately counted each team's clothes. It was just as slow and meticulous as when we did it at the apartment.

"Here," Quince said. She held her cell phone out towards me. I blinked at the screen. It was open on a new contact screen. "Put your number in so we can call each other."

"Okay." I was still a bit under about her, but this was necessary if we were going to continue playing this game.

After pitting in my name and number, I gave her my own phone so she could do the same.

After about half an hour of waiting, Silver moved on to us. She had a notepad and pen in her hands. She gazed over our cart of clothes and gestured for us to stand. “Set the clothes on the floor, and I’ll count up the total while you put them back in.”

The two of us silently complied. It was just as tedious as back in the apartment, but this time there was only one person to count and we had to make sure the clothes fit back in the cart properly.

“What do we do with all of this afterward?” I asked.

Silver held up her finger and finished adding up the amount she had gotten so far before dismissively answering. “They are yours to do whatever you want with.”

I didn’t have a use for any of these clothes. I couldn’t just take them home and doubted that I could just take them back to the store. If any of it were still standing.

“Not bad. You made it over the requirement by several thousand,” Silver said once we were finally finished. She gave us an amused smile. “If it were up to me I’d disqualify you for going so far out of range, but I don’t want to cut you two loose just yet.”

“Is that a good thing?” I asked Quince once Silver had moved on to the next group.

“It doesn’t matter as long as we make it to the next round.”

“What do you want to do with all of these clothes?”

“I don’t know. Do you want any of them?” I shook my head. “Then we’ll just leave them here.”

It felt like many minutes later when everyone’s totals had finally been counted up. Telling by the looks of everyone else they were tired of waiting around too. The man dressed in the dark suit, Black, had moved to the back of the room and was speaking into his phone. I couldn’t pick out what he was saying, but he seemed upset.

His back was towards us and he was waving his hand around. Yates and Hill were regarding him with mixed levels of annoyance. Everyone else just looked ready to leave.

“The winners of this round are determined by the teams that came the closest to the required $10,000. The round is over, after getting your money you are welcome to leave,” Silver said from her place at the front of the room. Next to her, Gold reached into the pocket of his jacket and pulled out several white envelopes. He leaned to look at Silver’s notepad before shifting “Ms.Hill came in first place.”

Silver paused, while Gold held out the envelope towards Normal. She quietly took the envelope and left, leaving her bags of clothes on the floor. Afterward, Silver moved on to the next person. Ashe was in second place. Black in third, much to his annoyance. Morgan in fourth. The rest of us were in last, regardless everyone still received an envelope.

Ours contained fifty dollars in cash. I had almost forgotten that there was a paid reward for doing all of this. The money was broken up into five ten-dollar bills. I let Quince take the extra ten dollars. It didn’t matter.

“I’m going to head home,” Quince said while I pulled my backpack from under the shopping cart. I made sure that Hue was safely zipped inside and wouldn’t slip out.

“Okay. I’ll call you when a message comes on the pager.”

She nodded and left. It was just me and the siblings now. I walked over to Gold and waited for him to stop talking with his sister.

“Can we help you?” Silver asked.

“Gold said he’d answer my questions.”

“I said if you won I’d answer some of them,” Gold clarified.

“I did win.”

“You succeeded and passed on to the next round. You didn’t win,” he said with a smile. Silver gave a low laugh and I wanted to roll my eyes. “The difference is important.”

“Whatever. I’m going home.”

“See you again for the next round,” Gold called out.

I was too tired to be mad about being tricked. I didn’t just have to compete but win ahead of everyone else for Gold to answer my questions. I wanted answers, but I wasn’t willing to go as far as Quince and I had gone today. I didn’t want to risk lives and cause pointless destruction just for them. Maybe this was a bad idea.

Before arriving at the apartment, I got two large pizzas for dinner. It felt like an appropriate meal for tonight. I set the boxes on the kitchen counter as soon as I got home and headed to the bathroom for a shower. It was a relief to finally was the smell of smoke and burnt off. I quickly settled into my pajamas and sat at the dinner table to eat. By the time Ninety-one and Zero-zero had come home, I was dozing in out of sleep.

“Long day?” Ninety-one asked after he nudged me awake.

“Something like that yeah,” I said through a yawn as I sat up. I gazed at my plate that I had pushed to the side. It was cold now. I had originally gotten two slices, but only one sat on the plate. I assumed Hue had come along and taken it. I wouldn’t have been the first time. I just hoped he had eaten all of it and didn’t drag the remains under my bed again. “How was work?”

“Zero-zero got a promotion,” Ninety-one said.

“I wouldn’t call it that,” Zero-zero said from the kitchen. He was getting plates out of the cabinet. “I’m just handling files that are slightly more important than the ones I was working with before.”

“That shows that they have faith in you as a worker,” Ninety-one said.

“It shows how short-staffed it is.”

“Do you get paid more?” I asked.

“A little, yes.”

“That sounds like a promotion.” Zero-zero gave a dismissive hum as he put pizza on the plates. “Anyway, I’m going to bed.”

“The sun hasn’t even gone down yet.”

“Don’t mess up your sleep schedule too much,” Ninety-one said.

“Okay,” I say back to him.

Hue had left his leftovers on top of my bed rather than underneath this time. I pulled the now grease-stained pillow out from under the sleeping dragon and dumped the crumbs and half-eaten food into the bathroom trash can. If I remembered I would wash the pillowcase before the stain could set too much. For now, I just turned it over and laid down.

Almost an hour later and I hadn’t managed to fall asleep. It was tired enough to in normal circumstances, but now it just wasn’t happening. Maybe it was too early in the day? Maybe my mind still felt sick after helping to burn down an entire building? Maybe because I might be asked to do something like that again?

Eventually, I got out of bed and used the closet door to open up the library. The floor felt cold compared to the carpet in my bedroom. As I made my way to the table, I picked up the watch that I had thrown in here. I turned the flashy thing in my hands as I looked it over.

I probably should have donated those clothes instead of just leaving them there to be found by whoever came across them. On the other hand, they were unique and expensive. Whichever place I gave them too might have gotten suspicious and tried to find out where they came from. The security tags were on them too, so that would have been a clear tell. It was best that they and my crimes be forgotten.

I set the watch on the table as sat down. With a deep sigh, I looked around the mostly empty room. If Gold knew about why Heita and Goldsboro were the way they were, then maybe he knows something about this place. But to ask him, I would have to come in first in a game round, multiple rounds if I wanted all of my questions answered. Why did he have to be so technical about this? What did he gain from it?

I set down the watch and picked up the 3D glasses I had left sitting there from when I took the clothes out of here in the alley. I slipped them on my face and looked around. There wasn’t anything written in the library, not that I expected there to be. I absently tapped the table and brought up the map. Something new had shown up. Not through the glass, but an icon over Burilmont.

I pushed the glasses up on my head and tapped the icon, bringing up a larger image of it. It consisted of five slanted lines, going from pointing up towards the left the down to the right. The middle one was black and the longest. The ones to the bottom left were a deep crimson and a lighter shade of red the wasn’t quite pink. The lightest one was the shorter of the lines. On the opposite upper right side was a similar set of lines. The one nearest the black one was a shorter dark blue one, with an even shorter and lighter blue one next to it. Together all of the lines made an odd hexagonal shape.

I didn’t understand what the icon represented. At least with Heita’s, it had the same colors that were limited to the city, but Bruilmont didn’t have a limited color spectrum. The only thing I knew that had the same colors were the glasses, but how could they be related to the map or the library? Could it have been because I left them in here? Nothing like that caused the Goldsboro or Heita icons to show up.

No, Heita’s came up around the time I found a mask. But why? Why did these things trigger the map to update itself with an icon? The icon didn’t even represent the items in any way aside from color. I wish I had some kind of explanation for any of this. Why couldn’t this place come with some sort of instructions? Maybe they did and I just couldn’t get to them. I didn’t get this place by accident after all.

I turned off the map and sat back in the chair. All of this was giving me a headache. Why couldn’t any of this be simple?

There was a knock on the door to my room. I quickly got up and hurried out of the library to close it behind me. When I opened the door, Zero-zero was standing on the other side.

"Hey, need to ask you something."

"Okay." He seemed unsure about something, which was odd for Zero-zero.

"I was thinking about taking Ninety-one out to dinner tomorrow night. Just the two of us. Is that okay with you?"

"Why wouldn't it be?" Had I made him think that them going somewhere together bothered me?

"I just wanted to make sure you didn't feel excluded or anything."

"I go out and do things on my own all the time, no reason you two can too."

"Good to know," he said before glancing down the hall. When he looked back at me, he pointed to the glasses on my head. "Did you get those while you were out doing things?"

"Uh, yeah. Sort of."

"What about that watch?"

I had forgotten that I was holding it. "This was for winning a game."

He reached out for it and I handed the watch to him. He looked it over for a moment before stopping when he spotted the price tag. "This is $800. What kind of game were you playing?"

"It was just something I got invited into this morning," I half lied. "You can have."

"Are you sure? This is a really nice watch."

I shrugged. "I'm not going to wear it."

"Thank you," he said before pulling me into a hug. It was the first we'd ever hugged before, not that I wasn't opposed to receiving them. Was that something a family did normally? Something about it gave me an odd feeling in my chest. Maybe it was because the watch was the first gift I had ever given anyone and I got it by such awful means. I didn’t know. It felt like I didn’t know a lot of things lately.


	8. Chapter 8

It was just before four o’clock in the morning when the pager buzzed. I had made the mistake of leaving it on the table by my bed. Through my sleep-filled mind, I was fully prepared to ignore it, but after Hue walked over my head to see what was making the noise. After pushing him off, I looked at the screen.

‘Come to 485 Hester street at 5 o’clock tonight.“

I groaned and all but slammed the pager on the table. I had hoped that they would at least give us a full day before giving us another task. I only had an hour to get dressed and get there. Did the buses even run this late?

I unplugged my phone and searched up the address. It wasn’t too far from here, but it would take some time to get there. I would probably need to run part of the way. I texted Quince the address. I hoped that she would be able to make it. She lived further out than I do.

I yawn as I began to drag myself out of bed to get dressed. I halfway considered just putting on the clothes I wore yesterday but decided against it. Mostly because they still smelled smoke. At this late in the night, I didn’t care how wearing yesterday’s clothes would have presented me as being.

When I grabbed my backpack off of the floor, Hue was quick to jump in and get himself settled. I was considering just leaving him here, especially since I didn’t want to put the harness on him, but I just sucked it up and did it anyway.

The apartment was silent as I crept out of my room and into the kitchen. The only light was a small nightlight that Ninety-one insisted that we keep on the space between the kitchen and living room. I lingered just long enough to get a slice of pizza from the box still sighting on the table before leaving. The moment I stepped out into the night air, I regretted not bringing a jacket with me. But I was already down by twenty minutes and couldn’t risk it.

The streets were strangely empty. Given the time, it wasn’t that surprising. It made me think back to the night I met Gold and Silver. I wasn’t sure if I regretted letting Hue lead me out that night. If I ever got my answers, maybe yesterday and the things to come will be worth it.

Reaching in my pocket, I pulled the out black glasses and put them on. The writings on the sides of the buildings had changed. A giant ‘2’ had been placed on nearly every building in sight. ‘2nd round’ and ‘ round two’ had also been written in the glowing white font.

How did those two do all of this? There must have been some kind of trick to it? Maybe it wasn’t real, just something that appeared to be real when the glasses were worn. Either way, it was a lot to go through given that only a hand full of people could see them.

So many questions. I needed to write them all down.

Although scares, there were red and blue rectangles dotted around as well. When I had gone through a blue one, it made me invisible. Did all of them do that? Were the red ones different? Once this round was over I’d have to try it out.

When I arrived at the address I was surprised to find that it was a car dealership. A sign nearly as tall as a building stood unlit with the word ‘Nato’ on it. I recognized the brand from commercials. Telling by the size of the lot alone, it appeared to be a rather large company.

The lot was well light by the same type of light posts I’d seen in store parking lots. It was almost like a beacon in the night. I headed down to the front entrance. Even though the gates were cl there was a small group of people waiting there. I took off the glasses and returned them to my pocket before joining them.

Gold and Silver were there along with Yates and Hill. The latter two barely passed me a glance when I walked up. Gold was dressed in a black suit with a yellow shirt underneath. Silver wore a similar grey suit with a black shirt. They both still had or at least reapplied their makeup. I couldn’t understand why anyone would want to go so far to get dressed at this hour of the night.

After a few minutes, Black joined us. He was wearing a solid black jogger suit. If it wasn’t for the cigarette in his mouth, I wouldn’t have seen him coming until he reached the light of the lot. The older man’s face was set in a frown. After him came Ashe. He was dropped off by a black car. See it made me wonder where Black had come walking from.

Next was Morgan. She had also been dropped off by a car. After her, was Quince, who had been running. She was out of breath when she reached us, though she tried to hide it. She quietly stood next to me.

“Next time see if you can borrow your roommates’ car,” she whispered through labored breaths.

“They won’t let me use it. I don’t have a license.”

“Then let’s hope we don’t have to steal a car.”

It was five minutes till when Rosa arrived with Peanut in tow. The small dog was tucked under the girl’s arm like a bag. The curly-haired dog watched everyone with wide eyes. Was he always scared or was it just us?

“Now that everyone is here, we can start,” Silver said.

“Is there a reason we had to be here so damn early,” Black asked impatiently.

“This place opens at nine, but the workers get here a few hours early to get everything set up. Seven o’clock is when the first shift is scheduled to clock in,” Gold explained. “That gives you all about two hours, not counting any early arrivals, to steal a car.”

“Great,” Quince said under her breath, low enough that only I could hear her.

“Are all of our tasks going to involve stealing something?” Rosa asked.

“Not exclusively, no,” Gold said. Seeing as how their last game ended, I would have preferred to stick to stealing.

“You have two hours to steal any type of vehicle,” Silver said. “Take the keys or hotwire one, it doesn’t matter. The only condition is that has to be undamaged. Anyone who fails to get a car out successfully before the staff arrives or gets caught by the police will be disqualified.”

“How do we get in?” Rosa asked.

“We have to break in, kid. Keep up,” Morgan said with the roll of her eyes. I didn't see how that was an obvious course of action but said nothing.

“Try not to set off any alarms,” Gold added.

Hill and Ashe were the first to depart from the group. The metal fencing around the dealership was only a three feet high, plenty easy to step over. Quince took the lead as we moved through the lines of cars.

“Do you happen to know how to hotwire a car?” She asked.

“No.”

“Neither can I. That means we have to head to the building and get keys from an office or something. In that case, we need to be on guard.”

“Do you think the security here is going to be better than the one at the clothing store?”

“Definitely. But I’m more worried about the others. They have a chance to stop us this time, don’t think that they won’t at least try. There’s no telling what any of them might try.”

I didn’t understand why she was so sure that the other players were willing to harm us, but I said nothing. There wasn’t much point in arguing about it right now.

It was a quick jog to the building. We reached with no problem. To was a single story tall, with walls made mostly of glass. Before we got too close, Quince slowed down and motioned for us to hide. I crouched with her behind a four-door car. It was odd trying to hide in an area that so bright that it might as well have been midday. Despite leaving from the same area, we didn’t encounter any of the other players. The was only one person at the building. Norma Hill. She was kneeling in front of the glass door and appeared to be picking the lock.

“Once she gets far enough inside, we’ll go into too but keep a distance from her. If we're lucky we can find where the keys ate kept before she does,“ Quince whispered. ”When we’ do, you keep a watch out for anyone else while I grab the keys.“

“Don’t we just need one key?” I asked.

“If we grab a bunch than we have a better chance of getting something good and keeping the others from winning too.”

“Won’t that make them want to come after us?”

“We need to take that chance if want to come in first. We don’t know what qualifies as a solid win, so we have to assume that we need something big, something expensive and we have to finish first.”

“You’re not going to start a fire again, are you?”

Even with her face turned away from me, I could see her jaw clench. “No.”

It didn't take Hill long to get the door unlocked. We watched as she walked inside and passes a white car that was strangely sitting inside the lobby. Heading further back, she was soon swallowed by the darkness that covered the back half of the room. I could barely make out the far wall and the line of doors stood. Also in the darkness were tiny red dots that blinked slowly. Cameras. Hill either hadn't noticed them or didn't care.

On Quince's signal, we raced toward the building. Hill whipped when she heard us enter. She had been in the middle of picking the lock to another door. Before she could make a move in response to our appearance, Quince pulled me to the front desk of the store. It was large, with computer setups for five people. I took one end while Quince took the other. Together we every draw on the desk that hadn't been locked up for the night. It was all useless paperwork that I didn't even bother to glance at. Metal banged against each other as Quince attempted to force open a locked drawer.

"Damn it. We're going to have to try one of the doors."

Before we could move, the glasses door opened again. The sound of angry, high pitched barking filled the quiet room. Rosa froze when she saw us. Peanut growled at us from his place under Rosa's arm. In my backpack, Hue shifted. My eyes moved to where Hill had been. She was gone and the door she had been at was now open.

"Come on," Quince said as she pulled me along. We headed to the door nearest to the desk. It was unmarked. Regardless, Quince tried the handle. When it didn't open she threw herself against the door to break it open. "Help me."

Reluctantly, I set my backpack on the floor and followed suit. My shoulder began to hurt after the first hit. Thankfully, the door wasn't metal, but it was flimsy either. Even with both of us hitting against it, it wouldn't give.

Over the banging, I could hear the door opening and footsteps moving through the room. They sounded heavy and even. After a short while, there was a voice.

"You're not going to win this kid." It was Black.

"You-you don't know that," I heard Rosa say. From the sound of it she had moved to somewhere else in the room.

"How about we make this easy for both of us. For all of us," He said louder, clearly speaking to Quince and me as well. We stopped and turned to watch him. Black was standing directly in front of the door, blocking our exit. "What will it be? A couple hundred each and everyone goes home. That sounds like a good deal."

"He thinks he can just pay us off," Quince hissed under her breath.

"I-no," Rosa said. She was standing by the white car. Apparently, trying to get it open.

"Shame," Black said before turning to us. "What about you two."

I didn't answer. Quince was less reserved. "Not a chance. The prize must be pretty good if you're willing to pay to make us quit."

He huffed. "So what if it is, girl? What are you even gonna do if you manage to win, huh? Do you kids even know what the prize is?"

I resisted the urge to be honest and shake my head. Instead, I looked at Quince. She knew about this game, so she must know what the end prize was. I knew what I was after but I'd never considered even questioning what everyone else got out of it.

"It's money," Rose spoke up.

Black laughed. The sound was grating. Peanut snarled and tried to get free of Rosa's arms. "It's far more than cash. Do you really think people like more or Hill or Morgan would bother with these idiotic tasks if it was? No, were after something much big and better than anything money can by. And if jumping through a few hoops gets us that, then so be it."

"What is he talking about?" I whispered to Quince.

"It doesn't matter," she muttered back. "We'll find out what the prize is once we win."

"You don't know?" I said louder than intended. she frowned at me but I brushed it off. What was her goal for doing all of this?

Black laughed and pulled a gun from the jacket of his sweats. "This is my last offer. Walk away and no one gets hurt."

"You're really going to shoot us?" Rosa shouted. To make his point, Black pointed the gun at her.

"Okay." All eyes turned toward me. "I'll leave."

"Good choice," Black said, stepping to the side of the door.

"No," Quince nearly shouted. "We're not done yet."

"I'm not getting killed over some mystery prize," I told her. Not even my answers were worth all of this.

I stepped away from her and moved toward my bag.

"Leave the bag," Black said. The gun was now pointed at me.

"I need it."

He narrowed his eyes. "Dump it out first."

He already had a gun on my, what danger could I possibly cause him? The last thing I wanted to do was show Hue to him or anyone else here. It was bad enough Quince knew about him. But if it meant getting out alive and unharmed then I had no other choice. I moved over to the backpack and unzipped it. Grabbing the back, I dumped everything out. My wallet, keys, and Hue all fell to the floor. His white body almost seemed to glow in the darkness.

"What in the hell is that," Black said. His voice barely audible over Peanut's barking.

"Peanut!" Rosa shouted.

The dog thrashed around, freeing himself from Rosa. The moment he hit the ground, he began barreling towards me. Hue hissed I while quickly shoved all of my belongings back in the bag and pulled him up. I tried to push him back in the backpack, but he refused. Instead, hiss and growling as he climbed onto my shoulders. When Peanut reached me, the dog clawed at my leg. When I tried to kick him off he bit me. Dropping my bag, I help on to Hue to keep him from getting to Peanut.

"Stop it," Rosa shouted as she ran toward me. She had only been a few feet away before Quince kicked Peanut off of me. The dog yipped before hitting the ground.

He was quick to get back up. Rosa stepped between us and tried to catch him, but he dodged her. I tried to run, but Peanut was faster. He got my leg against, tripping me. I landed on my shoulder. I did my best to keep a hold on Hue, but when Peanut lunged toward him, Hue attacked back. The poor dog yelped as Hue sunk his teeth into him. I sat up and pulled at Hue’s leash. Rosa came up and grabbed onto Peanut's sides. The panicked dog tuned and bit her hard enough to draw blood. Thankfully, it gave me enough time to pull Hue back a bit. Just enough distance so the two couldn't reach each other. Blood pooled where they had once stood.

All the while Black was laughing.

Blood dripping from Hue's mouth and claws as I took hold of the base of his harness and lifted him into my arms. Unlike Peanut, he didn't thrash around, only stiffly growling. Quince walked around Rosa, who all but had to pin Peanut to the floor, and stood next to me. She was hilding my backpack.

"Is he okay?"

"I think so," I said looking Hue over. I wasn't sure if any of the blood was his. I didn't even know if his blood was red.

"You can wait outside the gate. I'm going to finish this."

"You're not finishing anything," Black said as he approached, his gun trained on us.

"Leave us alone," Rosa cried out.

"Not until you drop out if this game."

"We're not dropping out of anything!" Quince shouted at him.

"Do you think this is a joke?" Black shouted as he fired his gun. There was a pained yelp as blood poured from Peanut. The small dog gave a weak whine before going still.

"Peanut! Why did you do that?" Rosa shouted, tears in her eyes.

"Leave or you're next."

Hue growled at the man as Black pointed the gun at Quince and me. I wrapped my arms tighter around him and stepped back.

"I've already agreed to leave," I said. "I'm done."

I reached out to take my bag from Quince, but she stepped away. " We can still win this."

"None of this is worth getting killed over!" I shouted at her. "If you want to die for this fine, but don't drag me with you."

She gritted her teeth and locked to the floor. When she spoke her voice was quiet. "I need to win."

"Then do it alone." I snatched my bag from her.

I passed a glance at Rosa who was quietly crying over her dog. I moved away from them, turning just in time to see the headlights of a car barreling toward the glass wall.


	9. Chapter 9

I grabbed Quince's arm and ran. Black shouted and I half expected to hear the gunfire. I never did. We made it out of the way just as an SUV plowed through the glass wall. The sound if it all shattering was deafening. Thousands of reflected lights danced over the walls and ceiling as shards went flying. The handful of moments that followed were silent as Quince and I looked around. Black was on the floor. He had barely made out of the way. I couldn't see Rosa.

When the door opened, it was Morgan who stepped out of it. Glass crunched as Black got to his feet, his gun pointed at the older woman. She fired the first shot. Black shouted but didn't go down. Quince and I ran to the white car for cover.

"There had to be an emergency exit somewhere," Quince shouted over the shooting. I looked around but didn't see one. Far into the darkness, I could see a hallway but not where it led.

Peaking around the car, I saw that Morgan and Black were circling around the SUV and taking shots whenever they could. Glass shattered when a bullet struck the windshield of the car.

"What do we do?" I asked.

"I don't know. We can't wait it out or one of them might shoot us. We have to make a run for it."

"Where?" The SUV stood near the door, it was too dangerous to go near.

Quince pointed to the door Hill had gone through. It was far closer and would be better cover than ab empty hallway. I nodded and together we raced toward it. As we ran, I looked over to the SUV. I could barely make out the body of Rosa underneath it.

When we made it into the room, Quince shut and locked the door behind us. We stood by as we caught our breath. This was far more than what I was willing to get into when I joined this game. Stepped back, I looked around. On the far wall was a metal case. Its door was open, revealing rows of car keys. How had Hill known what room to go into? Where was she? There was no other way into the office, but Hill was nowhere to be seen. I was sure I didn't see her leave.

"Good. We can still win," Quince said as she approached the case. She took out a handful of keys and shoved them into her pockets.

"That doesn't matter. We need to find a way out of here," I shouted at her. Had she suggested going in here just to get the keys?

"We can do both."

"How?" I demanded.

"We just need too," she trailed off, unsure where to go from there.

I hugged Hue. This was such a stupid idea. Coming out here in the middle of the night. Not telling Ninety-one or Zero-zero. Letting Gold talk me in to play this game after knowing what had happened last time. I had seen these men shoot each other and still decided to play. How could I be dumb enough to think that something like this wouldn't happen? Quince had even said that people died playing this game.

Hue nudged his head into mine. I ignored the smear of dog blood on my face. Tears burned my eyes as I sat on the floor. I was going to die here. After escaping Goldsboro and the Masked, this is what was going to get me killed.

"What are we going to do?" I muttered.

"We'll find a way out," Quince said. She had moved back over to me. "There's a chance that they could leave us alone. We just have to wait it out."

I said nothing. If we made it out alive this would be it. I was done. There was nothing worth any of this.

"Hey." Quince set her hand on my shoulder and I swatted it away. I glared at her. In my lap, Hue hissed and she pulled her hand away. "We will get out of this."

I looked down into my lab, where Hue was pawing at my side. There was a soft thud as the glasses fell out of my pocket. I had forgotten about them. With a breath, I put them on. Writing covered the inside of the office. Arrows of different sized glowed over the walls, ceiling, and floor. All of them pointing toward the lockbox of keys. A red glow enveloped me.

Quince eyed me as I stood and turned around. Covering the door was a tall red rectangle. A doorway. How Hill had disappeared. I opened up my backpack and put Hue inside.

"What are you doing?" Quince asked.

"Leaving." I begrudgingly grabbed her had and pulled her through the red space. When we stepped out, we were still in the room, now submerged in a red hue.

"What happened? What did you do?"

"Just follow me."

I didn't look to see if she did as I opened the door and walked out. There was more white writing around the lobby. There were a few arrows the stretched and curled over the walls and ceiling. They intersected wildly, more akin to doodles than purposeful directions. Although only one of them pointed to the door we had come from.

"What is this?"

I didn't answer Quince. Instead, walking to the SUV. The shooting had stopped. Morgan was ducked on the side of the vehicle on the side nearest to us. I assumed Black was on the other side.

"What are you doing?"

"They can't see us." I stopped next Morgan. She had stopped holding her arm to place bullets in her gun.

"Why not?"

I glared down at the woman. I wanted to hit her. Hurt her like how she was willing to hurt us. It would be so easy just to kick her. But I couldn't. Not in here. I'd just pass through her. Besides, It wouldn't fix anything. Rosa was still dead. So I stepped around Morgan, leaving her and Black to deal with each other.

"Hold on a minute," Quince shouted after me as we moved across the car lot. I didn't bother to look back until she grabbed my arm. "Sol, stop."

"What?"

"Where are you going? What is this place?"

"I'm going home." I waved my hand to gesture at everything around us. "This is how I snuck into Gold and Silver's game that night."

"How can you do this?"

"Does it matter?"

"Of course this is. This can help us win."

I ripped my arm from her. "I am done with this game. I'm not getting killed over this."

"You can't just walk away from this."

"You can't do anything to stop me. You don't even know how to get out of here. Unless you want to figure it out, stop talking and just follow me."

She looked ready to protest and argue me into complying with her but stayed quiet. We continued through the lot in silence. All the while, I kept an eye out for Hill. She must have been in here too and there was no telling what she might do if she found us. I was go9ng to wait until we were safely away from the dealership before leaving this red place, just in case Morgan or Black were going to try to come after us.

"What will make you can your mind?" Quince asked.

"Nothing."

"I get that tonight is a lot to deal with but-"

"I am not changing my mind!" I shouted as I rounded on her. Why couldn't she understand that I was done with this game?

Before I could continue shouting at her when something collided with the car I was about to walk in front of. We had been passing in front of a line of cars. Whatever has struck next to me had gotten lodged in the hood. I looked to where I thought the sound had come from and saw nothing.

"What is it?" Quince asked.

I didn't know and I didn't answer.

"Move!" A man's voice shouted.

From between two vehicles nearby came a man. He ran towards us. Behind him, more small objects slammed against the face of each car he passed. One of them shattered a windshield. Quince and I ran before the man could reach us, but Ashe was faster. He caught up he dragged us to the ground behind a car

"Let go!" Quince shouted.

"I'm trying to help you," Ashe said, releasing us.

"Why?" I asked.

He reached into his pocket and Quince shifted away, but Ashe only pulled out a large metal badge. Leaning closer I saw that it said 'Burilmont Police Officer'.

"You're a cop?" Quince offered.

"Undercover. I'll explain later. Right now I need to deal with Hill." More tiny objects shot by us.

"Is she doing that?" I asked.

"Yes. She's using a silencer to hide herself."

"Did everyone here bring a gun?" Quince complained.

"That shows how important this end prize is to them," Ashe peered around the side of the car. "She's coming. Move!"

He ushered us back through a line of vehicles, back toward the building. More quiet shots flew around us, hitting glass, metal, and tires. Lights flashed as car alarms began to blare. Ashe pulled us behind a pickup truck. From here we had a clear view through the glass of the dealership. I could see Black shouting over the SUV. Thankfully, he wouldn't be able to see us.

Ashe pointed off to the left. "Run that way. I'll find a way to deal with Hill."

Ashe took off first, weaving between vehicles until he was out of sight. Quince looked at me. "Can we trust him?"

"No one here is worth trusting," I told her. "We need to get out of here either way."

Together we stood and went opposite of Ashe. Regardless of whether he was being honest or not, I wasn't going to take the chance. I just needed to get out of the lot and back into the regular world and everything would be fine. Ninety-one and Zero-zero shouldn't be awake yet, so I wouldn't even have to explain myself.

"Stop," a voice ordered. Hill stepped out from between two cars. Like me, she had the 3D glasses one. In one of her hands, she held out a gun, pointing it toward us. "Given me the glassed."

"What do you want with them?" Quince questioned.

Hill stepped closer. "Set them on the ground or I will shoot both of you."

"Without them, we'll be stuck in here," I told her. I couldn't just give them up. Not, when she might just kill us anyway. What were the chances that I could run away? Was she faster than me? Could I dodge around enough to lose her? Would I just get myself killed? If she shot me in the back would Hue get killed?

"I will not ask again."

I wasn't worth the risk. I Hue led me to the glasses once, maybe he could do it again.

"Run!"

Hill didn't get a chance to reach before a man threw himself against her. Ashe wrestled her to the ground, grabbing at her gun. I took a step back, ready to run when Quince moved passed me. She helped Ashe fight off Hill and pull the gun from her hands. The moment she lost her grip on it, Ashe threw the weapon under a car. He then pulled Hill onto her stomach. Using his knee to pin her down.

"You really are a cop," Quince said as she sat on the ground.

"They don't give those badges to anyone." Reaching into his pocket, Ashe pulled out handcuffs and closed them around Hill's wrists. "Norma Hill you are under arrest for attempted automobile theft and deadly violence against a police officer."

"Save your breath. My lawyers will have me free by noon today," she said offhandedly. She turned her head so that her check eas resting on the ground.

"Yes, well, I'm sure you'll find a way out of those soon enough too. I bet you prepared for this and other things before even joining this game. People like you typically put in weeks of training, don't you? All for this prize of yours. It makes it all the easier to leave you here for now. I'll come back once this round is done and we'll see how good your lawyers are." Ashe stood up from her. "Come on, we should get out of here for now."

"Fine by me," I said.

"We can use the doorway I came through," Ashe said as he stepped away from Hill and headed towards the edge of the lot.

Before following him, Quince reached down and picked up Hill's glasses that had fallen from her face. I didn't say anything about it. Ashe was coming back to arrest her and if he was right about her getting out of the handcuffs, this way he wouldn't come to get us any time soon.

Ashe's doorway was set outside of the dealership, thankfully on the side, far away from the entrance. When we were out, he kept his word and explained why a police officer of all people was playing this game.

"You two may not know this, but this game has been going on for a while, several months now. Because of it, crime has gone up in the city in small bursts. We've gotten a few calls here and there of people involved in these game but investigating could never get far," Ashe explained. "Witnesses would suddenly refuse to cooperate or go missing."

"Why? What happened to them?" Quince asked.

"The ones we could find didn't want to talk. The others might turn up dead some days later, most didn't. Each of them mentioned some kind of game that they took part in."

"So you're here to get proofs of these the game and arrest the people playing it?" Quince asked.

"In a way yes. We've gotten a hold of people like Hill before. People who are willing to kill to win. Win can't count on them for a testimony."

"You want us to be your proof," I asked him.

"No. That would put you in too much danger. We've had people under guard and in witness protection go missing and get hurt after coming forward." He tapped the glasses on his forehead. "We couldn't figure out how they were doing it until getting these. Now, I'm playing this game to not only get the evidence I need but to find out why people like Hill and Black are willing to go so far to win."

Quince nodded in understanding. I wasn't sure if she fully believed him or not. I was even sure if I did.

"Knowing this, I must ask you both to forfeit this game for your own safety."

"No. I am not just going to quit," Quince protested.

"You don't understand. Gold and Silver, those two, they've gotten to people we had hidden away for weeks. Sealed and guarded buildings, secret rooms, none of that was enough to stop them. They are hell-bent on getting people to play their game. We can't stop them from spreading their glasses and gaining new players, so the only other option is to stop them. If they no longer have their grand prize the people like Hill will stop playing. This game is dangerous and needlessly destructive, regular people will stop playing once they realize it. The only way to make it stop is to smother it out."

Quince shook her head. "I can't just abandon this. For me, it is more than just money or whatever the prize is."

"What could be worth all this danger? I heard the gunshots. I know Black and Morgan were after you. Hill was close enough from killing you. These first two rounds have been easy enough, but it will get much harder from here."

"I am not just walking away," Quince's voice rose.

Ashe's voice also grew. "Do you remember the Larson's the older couple you didn't make it to the first round? The husband, Ernest called the police. He knew this was wrong and he tried to tell us. He was found dead a few hours after the round ended. His neck was broken in his own home. His wife had only left him for a moment and when she came back he was gone. No forced entry, no visitors, nothing. Those two are dangerous. There is no telling the lengths they are willing to go."

"Then why don't you just arrest them?" I asked calmly.

Ashe sighed to settle himself. "We have tried, but there is no solid evidence convicting the two of them. Without it, we can't arrest them for any means. That is why I need you two to walk away. Two less people to get hurt by all of this."

"I can't."

"Let it go already," I lashed out at Quince. "There is nothing worth playing this game."

"To me, there is," She shouted. "Don't act like you didn't agree to play this too."

"I'm walking away from it. Why are you so determined. What is so important to you that you're willing to get both of us killed for?"

"That night after we spied on their game, Silver came to my house. She said that if I played, she would tell me what happened to my parents," Quince admitted.

"What do you mean?" Ashe asked.

"Money hadn't been good for a while. We were struggling. When they were invited to play the game, it was too good to be true. They never did anything that would put anyone else in danger. They weren't a threat to anyone but that didn't stop one of the other players from killing them. I didn't know who played that game, but If I win this one Silver will tell me. I need to know who killed my parents." When Quince had finished there were tears in her eyes. She wiped them away and glared at the ground.

"I'm sorry." Ashe reached out a hand towards her, but decided against it and let it fall to his side. "If you won't forfeit, then at least work with me. We can help each other win. That way we can both get what we need and make sure no one else gets hurt because of these games."

She took a deep shuttered breath before answering. "Fine. That works for me."

"Is this good with you two?" Ashe asked, turning to me.

"I- no. I'm not playing anymore."

"You can't just do that!" Quince shouted. "You wanted something out of too right? Isn't it worth fighting for?"

"No, not anymore." I took off my backpack. Hue grabbed at my arm as I reached past him to take out the pager. I held it out to her. "Sorry, but what I wanted isn't worth my life."

"I can't play without you," she said while taking the pager.

"You have the glasses and the pager. There's no reason they shouldn't let you."

"Sol-"

I threw on my backpack and I didn't wait to hear what else she was going to say before leaving. Neither she or Ashe followed me. As I left, I didn't see anyone from the game.

The relief of being free sat in my chest like a stone, weighed down by guilt, of the fire, of Rosa and Peanut, and leaving Quince. Was leaving her to play selfish? Did it make me a bad person? Did wanting to save myself make me a bad person? I wanted to say no but I couldn't be sure. I was just so scared. Of getting hurt. Of dying. It was normal for people to be concerned about things like that. But why did it feel so bad even now that I was free from it?

My throat tightened as my eyes watered. For the first time tonight I was thankful that it was so early and the streets were empty. No one was around to see as I walked home and silently cried to myself. I tried to tell myself that tonight wasn't that bad, that I'd made it through worse. It didn't make the tears stop. It didn't stop the feeling of guilt. Shame. Fear. I had seen what happened that night. When Gold and Silver made those men shoot each other, and I still had willfully joined their game. I should have known it would end up like this eventually.

By the time I reached the apartment, I cried myself out. Left with nothing more than sniffles and memories that I couldn't wait to forget. Deep inside I knew I wouldn't. Tonight would be stained in my mind alongside the Enforces. Burilmont was a nice city and I had stained it for myself.

When I entered the apartment, I was surprised to see that Zero-zero was awake and sitting at the dinner table. For a moment I was worried that he had been waiting for me, but the look of surprise on his face told me otherwise.

"Sol? What were you doing out so late?" He asked. He didn't sound accusatory, just genuinely confused but that didn't stop the feeling of guilt that flooded through me.

"I-I was out," my voice cracked. I tried to keep it steady as I continued. "playing that game I told you about."

"Are you alright? What happened?"

I felt the tears start to return. "I, uh, I decided to quit."

He shifted to stand up. "Have you been crying."

I shook my head and slipped off my backpack before sitting in the chair across from him. I should have just gone to my room but I didn't want to be alone right now. Instead, I looked over to the papers that were spread in front of Zero-zero. "What are those?"

He looked me over before sitting back down and answering, although with some hesitation. "These are a few documents that I copied from work. I probably shouldn't have but something about them is bothering me."

"What are they about?" I wasn't curious in the slightest, but I need a distraction. I let Hue out of the bag. He sat on the table and I began to absently pet him.

"Well, they are a collection of reports of crimes that have occurred throughout the city. They range from theft, vandalism, deaths and nearly everything in between. All of them are multiple accounts that happen on the same day," he took one of the sheets and set it on yop of the pile. "It also mentions writing all over the city. There are handwritten notes on it but no pictures. It may just be my own rampant curiosity, but all of it is driving me up a wall. This is only a few of dozens of reports."

"Are they police reports?"

The weakness in my voice refocused Zero-zero's attention on me. "No. They are more like chronological records that the company is keeping."

"What is your company called?" I asked, changing the subject again. Now there was some company keeping track of the games too?

"Recall."

"Do they normally keep track of crime in the city?"

"From what I know, they don't. I think they are gathering information on other cities, but I don't have access to those kinds of files. Even with so little people working there, only two or three of us are allowed to see the files on them." He paused for a minute "Sol are you sure you are alright? You can talk to me about it. If anything talk to Ninety-one."

"I'm fine." I could feel the tears coming back. I closed my eyes to fight them back, but that only made it worse. Before I could do anything about it I was crying again.

Zero-zero moved to my side in an instant. "What's wrong? Did something happen to you out there?"

"I-I did something wrong. I didn't want to but I just went along with it anyway."

He looked at me confused. "What do you mean? I'm sure whatever it was, it was an accident."

I shook my head, no longer able to speak through the sobbing. Regardless, Zero-zero bent down and hugged me. He stayed like that, letting me get it all out until my crying had calmed down. "Hey. It's going to be alright. I'm sure whatever it was, you had your reasons."

"They weren't good enough."

"Do you want me to wake Ninety-one up?" Zero-zero asked as he let me go.

"No! no."

"Will you at least tell me? Maybe we can work it out together." Wiping my eyes, I nodded. "Okay, let me get you some tissues first.

Zero-zero sat next to me as I cleared my nose and wiped off the tears. Afterward, I told him everything that happened up to the point of finding the glasses to tonight. He quietly listened, not saying anything as I described every bad decision I made over the last week. When I was done he only said one word.

"Okay."

"Okay?"

"I understand that you wanted to know more about what is going on with the world around us. Especially given your history. I've stood by as people were turned into Masked, so I understand putting your own curiosity before anything else."

"What should I do?"

"You've already walked away. That's all there really is to do."

"But I've hurt people," I argued.

"No, you haven't. From what you told me, you haven't hurt anyone. Yes, you did go along with questionable choices, but you never hurt anyone. And when it did get to a point you knew when to draw the line and walk away."

I nodded. His words didn't help me feel any better, but it was nice talking to him about it. I pulled Hie into my lab, waking him from his sleep.

"There is one thing," Zero-zero said slowly as if he was still deciding what he wanted to say. "Ashe. Milford Ashe."

"What about him?"

"I work with a man by that name. He's part-time. I rarely see him there. Apparently, his regular job is as a police officer."

"Oh." I had no idea what the feeling that passed through me was. Dread? Fear? It wasn't strong but it definitely didn't feel good. It was cold and sickening.


	10. Chapter 10

The plan was that I would go to work with Zero-zero to see Ashe at the office they worked together in. Zero-zero said that despite Ashe's work as a police officer, he comes to the office for an hour or so every morning.

Unsurprisingly, I was able to get much rest within the few hours of sleep I was able to get. I was already yawning as soon as I left my room.

"Good morning, Sol. Are you feeling any better?" Ninety-one asked when he saw me.

"I- yeah," I answered, barely remember that I had gone to bed early the last time he saw me.

"That's good," he said with a smile before going to set the table.

Zero-zero was standing in the kitchen by the stove. Walking up to him, I saw that he was cooking pancakes.

"Hey," I greeted.

"Hey. How are you feeling?"

"I'm good."

"Good?" he asked with a glance at me.

"I'm okay. Better than last night, I guess."

"Do you still want to go with me today? We can wait until you feel more up to it."

I sighed. "No. I need something to busy myself with anyway. Besides, I want to know what's going on."

Zero-zero nodded and turned off the stove. Breakfast was normal for the most part. Ninety-one chatted happily about places his coworkers had visited around the city. The conversation soon switched to work as he and Zero-zero chatted about recent happenings at their respective jobs.

"Speaking of which, Sol is coming to work with me," Zero-zero said. "Just for a while anyway."

"Oh, that's nice," Ninety-one said happily "I wish you visit my work too, but they don't allow visitors who aren't clients. Too much personal information around."

After breakfast the three of us headed out. I left Hue in my room with some food and water for the day. I wasn't sure what we were going to do after we talked to Ashe, but I wasn't Hue to be alright just in case.

I sat in my usual spot at the back of the van. The drive was slow with early morning traffic and quiet as we listened to the radio. I was surprised that the van had a radio, let alone a working one. It was set to a news station.

"At around six-thirty this morning, police arrived at the Nato car dealership on Hester street after a report that it had been broken into. Three bodies were found on the property. Two of them have yet to be identified, while the third is of a small dog. It is unknown whether the two individuals assisted in the break-in or not. The investigation is going slow as all security footage is missing. It is unclear whether this is an unfortunate circumstance or a deliberate act by the criminals responsible. The first responding officers-" Zero-zero changed the station to one that was playing music.

"Sol, maybe you should stay at home for a while," Ninety-one said after the song had ended. "There's been a lot of crimes like that."

"Okay," I agreed.

People at work say that hit might some kind of organized group doing it all. There was even a fire yesterday," he continued. "they think that it was arson."

From the reflection on the rearview mirror, I saw Zero-zero glance back at me. "Do you want to cancel dinner tonight?"

"No, I still want to go. I'm just worried about Sol being out alone all day," Ninety-one clarified.

I said nothing until we reached Ninety-one's work. It was a simple bricked four-story tall building without any notable markings. It stood in a large lot with three other identical structures. If it wasn't for Ninety-one pointing it out we wouldn't have been able to know where to stop at.

"See you later," I said as he unbuckled the seat belt.

"Both of you have fun," Ninety-one said before leaving.

We waited in the parking lot as Ninety-one headed up the few steps that lead to the front door. He gave us a wave before going inside.

"Do you want to sit in the front?" Zero-zero asked.

"No, I'm fine here." Shortly after we were back on the road, making our way through the traffic. "Do you think we should have told Ninety-one about this?"

"No. Not until we understand what we're dealing with when it will be easier for us to explain it all."

"What do you mean?"

"I just- if what we find out is difficult to understand or come to terms with, I think it will be easier on him if we tell him ourselves rather than from a stranger like Ashe."

"Okay," I said. I didn't fully understand why he wanted to wait, but he had known Ninety-one longer than I have so I just trusted his judgment on this.

Again the drive was quiet until we reached our destination. The office was had a single floor building that was pressed in between and hidden in the shadow of two taller buildings. The address was printed on the window but there was no indication of what the place was.

The immediate inside was a small lobby with a desk set off to the left. For the moment it was vacant. The only sign of anyone being there was a steaming mug. The floor was covered in an off-color white tile. Many of them were cracked. The lights over us had a yellow tint. The smell of coffee was in the air.

Ahead of us was a door with a frosted window making up most of the top half. Going through it, we stepped into a slightly larger room, one filled with six desks. Each had a computer setup on them. Only two were occupied by people. Neither of them looked up when we entered. Looking around, I saw that there was a small kitchen area to the right of us. It as a small table with a few chairs around it. We moved through the room to the very back where another door sat. Zero-zero knocked on it.

"Yes? Come in," the voice unmistakably belonged to Ashe. Zero-zero pushed open the door. "Oscar? Good morning. What can I do for you?"

Oscar? Right, I'd forget that he and Ninety-one have different names to everyone else.

"We need to talk to you," Zero-zero, Oscar, said as he stepped into the room. Ashe was sitting behind a desk similar to the ones out in the room.

"Of course, what about?" he paused and stood from his seat when he noticed me. "Sol? You two know each other?"

"We're family so to speak," Zero-zero told him. "I have a few questions about last night among other things."

"Close the door and have a seat," Ashe said as he returned to his seat. We sat in two of the three chairs that were in front of Ashe's desk. "What do you want to know."

"To start, what is the purpose of Recall? Why are you collecting information on this game?"

"I, and the others who run this place, are using it to keep a careful track of every odd thing going on in Burilmont," Ashe answered.

"You're a police officer. I'm sure that you have plenty of resources within the police department. So why this?"

"The police are doing the best they can with what they have, but this game, the people that run it, aren't something that can be dealt with through normal methods."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Those glasses they leave around for people to find aren't normal everyday things. The we

Those glasses, the writing on the buildings, none of that is normal. There is only so much the police here can do. Recall, not necessarily the part you're in Oscar, but the heart of it was made to help places like this deal with the strangeness of things like the glasses and anything else Gold and Silver may have up their sleeves."

"Places like this. Does that mean you have branches in other cities?" Zero-zero asked.

"Yes." Ashe paused "Do either of you know what life is like outside of Burilmont? Not from books or anything, I mean first-hand experience. It may be hard to imagine but other places are far different from here."

"We're both from different cities," Zero-zero explained.

For a brief moment, Ashe looked surprised. "Tell me about them."

"I'm from Heita."

Ashe nodded. "I've been there before, it was a nice place. Peaceful. There aren't many places like that anymore. What made you leave?"

"The Masked. Creatures that turned people into one of their once just by touching them. They took over and transformed even the buildings. It wasn't safe to stay."

"I'm sorry to hear that. But honestly, I'm not surprised something like that happened eventually."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"The world we are currently living in is broken. We don't know when or how, but at some point, the laws of our world broke. Recall is a group set out to understand our world and possibly fix was we are able."

"How did you know the world isn't supposed to be this way?" Zero-zero questioned.

"If you look at older things such as books or videos, you'll find no mention of magic or dangerous creatures that are around now. Communication and travel between cities and even countries were common. But now, no one even considers leaving their city. Not because they are afraid of what might be out there, it never occurs to them. As if such a thought is beyond comprehension."

Zero-zero nodded. "This works for the creatures within the areas too, doesn't it? The Masked transformed everything in Heita, but they never tried to leave the city."

"We believe that this might be a side effect of the world-changing. As subconscious or an instinctual way for people to keep themselves safe inside whichever singularity they were given. Like animals keeping to their own territory."

"You said that you weren't surprised about what happened to Heita. Are things like the Masked normal?" I asked.

"Not the Masked specifically, but cities or whatever areas around typically fall to some kind of dangerous occurrence. A creature, nature, or just general destruction. It is hard to say or predict what will happen."

"Will the same happen here?" Zero-zero asked.

Ashe shook his head. "No. Burilmont is a bit different."

"So it's safe here?" I asked.

"From whatever disaster that would have befallen, yes but there is more to it than that. To understand why you need to know about the city's core. Each location has one. It acts as its centralized power source. It decides and dictates how an area will react and change over time. It is a source of raw, chaotic energy than is nearly impossible to control. We don’t know how, but Gold and Silver were somehow able to control Burilmont's core. It is how they are able to write over the city so easily, and why the city will remain safe. They are keeping stable."

"Is there a way to take it back from them?" Zero-zero asked.

"I'm not sure. Even if we managed to take the core, there's no way of know if we'll be able to control it the way they are. We could unintentionally put everyone here in danger. For now, we are working to learn from them from afar."

"Is that why you joined the game? Not to stop them from hurting people, but to learn about the core?"

Ashe nodded at me. "I apologize for lying, but I needed you to trust me. Admittedly, I'd prefer if we could put a stop to their game, but having a safe city is more important. If they catch on to us, there is no telling what they might do. We've encountered someone with control over a core before and they did mich worse that trick people into playing a dangerous game."

Zero-zero sat back in his chair and nodded. "This is a lot to take in. I can't help but wonder, why are you so open to tell us all of this?"

"What would be to gain from keeping this a secret. The majority of people don't know this because they choose not to know. No one wants to believe in such a harsh reality. But you've already seen the dangers of the world. In a sense, your minds have already been open. Personally, I believe people should know as much as they can about the world they live in, regardless of its harshness."

"You aren't concerned with us telling Gold or Silver?"

"I know Sol isn't fond of them or their game, so yes I took the chance and trusted you." Ashe leaned forward on his desk. "I know this is a lot to take in and if you don't feel comfortable working here anymore more than I understand."

"I don't want to quit," Zero-zero said plainly.

"Would you like the rest of the day off to maybe think this all over?"

Zero-zero shook his head. "No, I'll be fine. Work might be a good distraction for right now.

"In that case, is there anything else either of you would like to know?" Ashe asked.

Zero-zero watched the space in front of him, eyes unfocused and lost. "No."

When Ashe looked to me, I shook my head.

"Thank you," Zero-zero said as he moved to his feet.

"Anytime. And if either of you have anything else you'd like to ask me, feel free to come back."

I followed Zero-zero out onto the hallway after closing the door to Ashe's office. "I guess I'll go back home."

"Are you sure?" he asked looking over to me.

"Yeah. I'll probably go back to bed and sleep for a while. I'm just worried about how we are going to tell Ninety-one."

"Let's not for right now. This is a lot to take in and I don't want to worry him. Ashe said that the city is safe so unless something happens, let's him keep thinking it is." I quietly nodded in agreement. If he thought that it was the right decision to make, then I had no reason not to go along with it.

"I guess I'll see you at home."

"Do you want me to drive you back?"

"No, I'll be fine taking a bus."

"Are you sure, I don't mind."

"Thanks, but you don't have to worry about it."

He nodded. "Okay, if you're sure. I'll see you at home."

I nodded. "See you then."

With that, I left the office. What Ashe had told us was too much to take in and I needed the time alone to think it over. Gold and Silver had some sort of powerful control over Burilmont. It was almost too impossible to believe. But that's how Hines controlled Goldsboro.

I checked my phone to fund the nearest bus that would take me home. It was a bit of a walk, but I was fine with that. While finding the station on the map, I noticed that I received a text message early this morning. It was from Quince.

'Hey, I know you probably don't want to hear from me but I thought that you might want to know that gold was asking about you. He wanted to know were. I said I didn't know but he kept pressing me. He seemed upset or something. I just wanted to let you know.'

I closed the message and returned the phone to my pocket. I guess it shouldn't have been a surprise. Gold was fairly adamant about me playing their game. Regardless, I wasn't going to be convinced into it again. Whatever Gold might have told me wasn't worth dying over.

After ten minutes or the bus arrived. With it still being late in the morning, the bus was half full. Thankfully, I was able to get a seat to myself for the time being. With all the stops and having to chan buses, I probably had an hour-long ride ahead of me. I settled for simply watching out the window and watching the city go by. Once I was home maybe I'd go back to sleep, or I might read a book.

My thoughts were interrupted when the bus suddenly swerved to the side. Vehicles near us honked. There was a collective gasp near the front. I looked up to see the driver picking himself off the floor. The bus straightened out on the road, but no one was at the steering wheel. Everyone one the bus shifted cautiously as the driver moved to retake his set. He was stopped by something none of us could see. The shirt of his uniform was jutting out as if something was holding him by it. Slowly the driver was lifted off the ground and thrown to the back of the bus.

He was thrown harder than any person could have been able to manage. People rushed over to him, but he did move. Panicked shouting filled the air as the bus began to pick up speed. The engine roared as the bus swerved in and out of lanes, moving around cars and larger vehicles. Anyone who wasn't holding themselves onto their seats fell to the floor. Behind me, a child was crying. A few seats over, a man was attempting to call someone. I doubted the person on the other line could hear him over the shouting.

I stared at the steering wheel as it turned back and forth. It was definitely moving as if someone was driving. Was someone there? Someone with the glasses? If so who would hijack an entire bus of people? Morgan? Black? I was certain that one of them was dead. Hill? Ashe said he was going to make sure she had failed last night's round. Had she escaped? No, she didn't have her glasses. It couldn't be anyone from the game, none of them could have thrown the driver like that.

"What do we do?" someone asked.

"Someone call the police."

"What can they do?"

Everyone started shouting over each other. One of them suggested going for the wheel again. No one made a move for it. The driver was still knocked out on the ground.

The bus shook as it clipped a car, causing both it and the bus two swerve in opposite directions. Through the window, I watched as it swerved into other vehicles, each one colliding into another. Within seconds, we were speeding away from the wreckage that covered several traffic lanes. The bus didn't so much as slow as it continued to speed through the streets, running traffic lights and stop signs alike.

I couldn't help but think that this did have someone to do with Gold and Silver. But why do this? Why go through all this trouble when they knew were I lived when they could get into the apartment easily. So if not them, then what?

Whoever had taken the bus had driven it to the parking lot of a run-down and abandoned building. Once it had stopped, the engine turned off and the doors were opened but people were hesitant to try and leave. Someone tossed a book they had with them out the door to see what would happen. Nothing did.

As the minutes passed and people began getting restless, someone eventually stood and approached the door. It was a kid, a teenager with a backpack one. She hesitated near the driver's seat but eventually moved passed it. The bus was silent as she stepped out the door. From the window, I and the others watched as she looked around the empty parking lot. She gave a glance back to the bus. Still nothing happened.

Only then did people begin leaving the bus. A few of us hung back and waited to see what would happen. For a while, everything was quiet and I continued getting off the bus too until sirens were heard in the distance.

Within moments police vehicles of all sized flooded into the parking lot and encircled the bus. To start, only a handful of officers left their vehicles. Half of them approached the people that were standing outside of the bus, the rest headed to the rest of us. They had their guns drawn but pointed downward as they entered the bus.

Whoever had taken the bus was gone. No one else was thrown around. The bus never started back up. The rest of us on board were free to exit. The police took each of us aside and questioned us on what had happened. No one was allowed to leave. I didn't think any of them believed what we were saying, not even after checking the bus's security video.

"All of this is quite dramatic isn't it?"

I turned to look at who spoke but as soon as I turned my head, I was grabbed by the shoulders and dragged to the ground.


	11. Chapter 11

Pain pounded through my head. The cracked, uneven pavement prodded into my back. I opened my eyes just as two pairs of hands grabbed onto my arms and pulled me up. My body stiffened as I stared up at the white faces of two Enforcers. They impassively stood me on my feet. In front of me stood both Gold and Silver. Like always, Adonis was wrapped around Gold’s neck.

“You had to make this hard didn’t you?” Silver said, annoyed.

“What’s going on? Why are the Enforcers here?”

“Sorry,” Gold said, “it wasn’t my idea, but we couldn’t let you just walk away. “We invited you to our game, it's rude to leave without saying anything.”

“Why? What do you want from me?” I demanded. At the sound of my raised voice, the Enforcers tightened their grip on me.

Looking around, I saw that I was still in the parking lot but everything looked off. It was like looking through the 3D glasses except it wasn’t just one color. Both a blue and red hue hovered over everything, yet it never mixed into purple. Each colored version of everything was slightly off, making it hard to see anything correctly.

“You're going to come with us for a bit,” Gold stated.

“No, I don’t want to. You have other people willing to play your game, you don’t need me.”

“I don’t want to deal with this, can we just knock them out for now?” Silver suggested. One of the Enforcers then gripped the back of my neck.

“Wait, we don’t need to go that far,” Gold cut in before directly speaking to me. “Why don’t you make this easier on all of us and come with us willingly. It has nothing to do with the game, we’re just going to be talking. Okay?”

“It isn’t like you are giving me much of a choice,” I responded.

“We’re not,” Silver said, “so let’s get going.”

She turned and began heading away from the bus and crowd, toward a police car. The Enforcers dragged me along behind her. It sat further from the other cars, almost hidden behind all of the officers and the others. Not that they would be able to see us it wasn’t. The siblings and the Enforcers walked through the people as they took me away, passing through them like ghosts.

“How did you pull me here without the glasses.”

Gold opened his mouth to speak but Silver cut him off. “You don’t need to know.”

I glanced around at everyone. None of them had noticed that I had disappeared. Why would they, I didn’t know any of these people. The best I could hope for was either Ninety-one or Zero-zero finding me missing once they go home tonight. They pushed me into the back of the police car, between an Enforcer and Gold. Silver sat in the front with an Enforcer at the driver’s seat. In less than a minute the sirens were on and we were leaving the parking lot. If anyone glanced at the car would they see it empty? Would they question it or just brush it off?

“Where are we going?” I asked as Adonis slithered her way onto my shoulders.

“You’ll see when we get there,” Gold answered, sounding almost amused as if it was a fun surprise.

“Why did you have to take the bus, why not just show up at my home like last time?”

“To prove a point, because you obviously didn’t get the message last time when we did do that,” Silver answered, “We can go and do anything we want in this city. That includes getting to you and those two men you live with. Just do what you’re told and everything will be fine.”

“Is this about Goldsboro?” I asked hesitantly. “Are you working with the Overseers?”

“Just be quiet. You can ask your questions when we get there,” Silver scoffed.

“Get where? Where are you taking me?” Silver waved her hand. The Enforcer next to me reached over and covered my mouth with its cold boney hand. I tried to pull my hand away, but the Enforcer only tightened its grip. Adonis lifted her head and hissed.

“Is that necessary?” Gold asked.

“I’m not going to listen to their questions for the whole trip. It’s annoying,” Silver argued.

They were quiet for the rest of the ride.

It had never occurred to me that the Enforcers would be outside of Goldsboro. Is that what these two were doing? It made sense, they gave control of Goldsboro and now Brilmont to these two. But why, Hines wanted to control everything, Gold and Silver are just getting people to play their game.

How did the two relate? What did they want from me? Hines knew I had a part to play about what happened, but I doubted he had time to tell the Overseers. Besides, when things started falling apart they didn’t seem to care what happened to the city anymore. What if they were still mad? Maybe they wanted to know how I did it? Were they going to try and turn Hue back into a fish again? Gold didn’t seem to care about that. Besides, they had Adonis and Nyx.

With the sirens blaring and the car speeding through the streets, we crossed the city in less than half an hour. When we eventually did stop, it was at the hotel where all of the players first met. The car was parked at the front. Thankfully, the Enforcer let go of my mouth, but it was only to drag me out of the car. Once I was out, the red and blue tints faded. I blinked, confused but didn't say anything.

With the Enforcers still gripped onto my arms, they led me through the lobby and into an elevator. Gold pushed a button labeled P2 that sat near the top. The ride was a slow and quiet one. Soon enough the elevator stopped. We followed a long hallway that was covered in a golden colored carpet. It matched the painted walls that were a lighter shade.

Pictures of Bruilmont lined the walls. They were either overhead shots or photos of popular sightseeing locations. At the end of the hallway were a tall set of double doors. Through them was a large room with a large square table in the middle. It could have easily sat a dozen people, yet besides us, there were only four people inside. Behind them stood a wall made entirely of glass that allowed sunlight to fill the room.

The first three I recognized instantly. Although I had never seen their faces before, I recognized their robes. They were all balding elderly men. They had what looked to be stains of black tears going down their faces.

The fourth person was a woman. She was tall and through her thick, black clothing I could tell that she was muscular. She had a deep scowl set on her face. The woman had long that was set in a thick braid and hanging over her shoulder. Her black hair shined like glass in the light. Her gold grey eyes moved over to us when we entered the room. Most notably was that her dark skin had light patches on it similar to mine.

“So this is them, huh,” the woman said, sounding unimpressed. She turned to the Overseers who were sitting several seats away from her. With a wave of her hand, she gestured toward me. “This is the one that ruined your little experiment?”

“Hines was responsible for keeping that city together,” one of the Overseers protested.

“And you were responsible for him. His failure is your failure,” the woman criticized before turning to us. “What’s your name?”

“Sol,” I answered simply. Silver said that they were just going to ask me questions. Maybe if I went along with this they would let me go. That was assuming that she wasn’t lying.

She tapped the table in front of her. “Sit down. You two as well.”

The Enforcers let me go and I obeyed. She pointed to the seat that was across from the space that separated her and the Overseers. Gold and Silver sat a few away from me. I could feel the Overseers glaring at me. This is the first time I had been this close to them. I’d hoped that I would never see or hear of them again.

“Why did you destroy our city?” one of the Overseers hissed at me. “Do you know how much work we put into that place. All of it gone because of you?”

Before I could defend myself, the woman cut in. “Shut up. You lost control of the core. You have no one to blame but yourself. But I am curious about how you took control of it, Sol.”

“I didn’t take control of anything. I’ve never even seen it.”

“The core of that place wasn’t something that could be seen. Not until it was contained at least,” The woman scoffed and glanced towards the Overseers. “The fact that you don’t know this is further proof that the city was a waste of time.”

“They must be lying,” a second Overseer protested.

“The core was contained,” a third Overseer spoke, “Goldsboro didn’t fall apart because it leaked out. It was taken. You were the only one to escape the city, that makes you the only one who can have possession of the core.”

“Where is it!” the first Overseer demanded.

“Be quiet!” the woman shouted at him. The woman gestured to someone behind me. A minute later an Enforcer set a small metal cage next to me. Hue was inside. A black muzzle was over his face.

"Hue," I called out as I reached for him. I stopped and eyed the Enforcer but it was already walking away. I slid the cage toward me.

The space between the bars were too small for me to through to be able to take off the muzzle. The lock on the bar needed a key to open. Hue grabbed onto the bars with his small claws. His eyes moved Adonis, who was still around my shoulders. She moved head closer to the cage, making Hue shrink back.1

"This creature has the power of the core within it," the woman explained. Her voice was boiling with anger. "Do you three know what that means?"

The Overseers were silent. Two of them glanced at each other. I took a brief look at Gold and Silver. They looked uncomfortable. Silver watched the woman with a hint of fear in her eyes. Gold was looking my way. He flashed me a sympathetic smile.

Hue had Goldsboro's core in him? Is that why he turned into a dragon. Did that explain why he kept getting new colors on his back? Were they going to try and take the core back? If they did, would Hue to be turned back into a fish? Was the woman angry with me because I unintentionally took the core? Her anger seemed to be more directed at the Overseers. She wasn't like Hines. She wasn't working for them but rather with them. Or they were working for her.

Tired of waiting for an answer the woman slammed her fist on the table. The sudden noise startled Hue and Adonis.

"It means your experience was a failure from the start!" she shouted, getting to her feet. "I ordered you to find the Colonizer in that city and have them take the core while you were there. Instead, you set up a little experiment that cost me the city and six months of effort."

"He had full control of the city. Everyone else were factory-made workers. He was the only one who could have been viable."

"Clearly not!" the woman shouted.

"A Colonizer isn't just a random person that can be converted with enough power at their hands. They are born one." She pointed to Hue. "That is a familiar. They help us control the cores. The fact that he didn't have an animal with him was the first and only clue you should have needed!"

“The city hardly had any plants, let alone animal. We assumed he would have one,” The first Overseer attempted to argue.

“When I asked if you were capable of search the entire city, you assured me that you would be thorough and precise. You said Hines was the one. You swore up and down that it couldn’t be anyone else.” The woman hissed through her teeth and sat back down. “You three have wasted enough of my time. From now on you will answer directly to my children. Maybe they will have the patience to deal with you. Get out.”

Silver and Gold exchanged glances. They looked just as displeased as the Overseers about the prospect.

“What about our alliance?” the second Overseer asked as he and the other two stood.

“It stands for now,” the woman almost hissed out. With that, the Overseers left but not before passing a look towards me. The first and tallest one had clear spite in his eyes. The woman huffed with anger as she got to her feet. “Those idiots gave me a headache. I need a break. I’ll be back in a bit.”

I watched silently as she walked around the table and left the room. Confused, I looked to Gold and Silver.

“That went better than I expected,” Gold said.

“I’m just glad she didn’t throw one of them out of the window,” Silver remarked impassively. She had taken out a cellphone from her pocket and begun looking through it.

“I don’t know, that would have been amusing.”/

“Can I leave now?” I was sure the answer would be no, but I wanted to ask just in case.

“Mother still wants talk with you,” Silver answered without looking up. They were her children? Didn’t that make them in charge of the Overseers now?

“Is it because of what happened to Goldsboro? I didn’t take the core on purpose.”

Silver waved her hand dismissively. “If it was important she wouldn’t have left it to those three.”

“How did you take the core, anyway?” Gold asked as he stood up and took the seat next to me. “You had to come in contact with it somehow. From what I heard strange things started happening all of a sudden one day and it only got worse from there.”

“Yeah. Bright, red fish of all types started swimming through the sky over Goldsboro,” I said remembering that morning. “That’s when Hue first started getting colors on his back. He was still a fish back then.”

“A fish?” Silver questioned.

“Adonis started out as a snake. She prefers it to anything else,” Gold said as he reached out and to pet her. She slithered up and around his arm. He held her up so that she was close to his face and smiled. “What else happened that day?”

“Nothing really,” I said. What was the point of telling them anything? It wasn’t like I could trust them. Who knew what they were going to do to me after this. “When can I go home?”

“That depends on mother,” Silver answered.

“What does she want from me?” I practically begged.

“She isn’t going to hurt you,” Gold assured. “You’re safe.”

“You abducted me. You’ve broken into my home twice,” I remind them.

“We were just having fun with you,” Gold responded.

“You have a warped idea of what fun is,” I shot back at him.

“You’re pretty sensitive for someone who destroyed an entire city,” Silver said while turning to me with a cruel smile.

“Come on. Sol didn’t do it on purpose,” Gold said, defending me. “They didn’t have anyone to learn from as we did. I’m sure Mother made her mistakes starting out as well.”

“Do you two normal talk about me the moment I leave the room?” Gold and Silver’s mother said when she entered the room. She stood on my side that was opposite of Gold with her hand on the back of the chair. Through his muzzle, Hue hissed at her. She narrowed her eyes and frowned at him. “When we get to the stronghold we’re going to have that thing trained.”

“We’re leaving?” I heard Silver ask.

“But you said we’d be here for several months,” Gold stated.

“That was so we could come of a way to find Sol,” she gestured to me. “Here they are, we need to leave so they can start their training.”

“What training?” I asked without thinking.

“But we haven’t finished our game yet,” Gold complained.

“Finish it tonight,” the woman responded plainly.

“We need time to get everything set up. It takes time to get everything ready,” Silver added.

With the way their mother acted with the Overseers I was surprised that they were willing to argue with her so openly. However, she didn’t appear nearly as angry as before. She didn’t even seem mad, only annoyed.

“I’ll give you two days.”

“We need at least until the end of the week,” Silver told her.

“It’s the last round. It needs to be good,” Gold explained.

Their mother rolled her eyes and began walking back towards the door. “Fine, you have until the end of the week, then we’re leaving.”

“Thank you, mom,” Gold said in a childish tone.

“Hold on, I’m not going with you,” I said once their mother had left.

“It’ll be fun. Training isn’t the best, but you get to learn to be a Colonizer and eventually you’ll get your own city,” Gold said happily.

“You’ll probably have to share,” Silver added.

“I’m not leaving. I don’t want to be a Colonizer. I am perfectly fine living here.”

“Look, you’re already a Colonizer by birth-” Silver started.

“I wasn’t born, I was made in a factory!” I shouted at her. The room fell into silence.

Gold looked over toward the door and waved on of the Enforcers over. It began unlocking the cage hold Hue. “All of this is a lot to take in. How about I take you home for now and we can talk about it later, okay?”

I didn’t want to talk about it later. I wasn’t going to go with them just because they said I was a Colonizer. What was that supposed to be anyway? But if agreeing was the quickest way that I could get home and away from them, then I’d go along for now. “Fine.”

“Good,” Gold said as he got to his feet.

With the cage open, I took Hue out and removed the muzzle on his face. The first thing he did, besides crawl onto his shoulders was snarl at the Enforcer. Its face didn’t register that it even noticed.

“Be back in a bit,” Gold said to his sister as he led me out of the room. Silver gave a halfhearted hum in response.

The trip back through the building was a quiet one. I stared ahead, doing my best to keep my anger buried. These people really thought that I would just leave with them? I had a life here. Granted, it wasn’t much, but I like what I had here. Things were peaceful for the most part. I didn’t have to worry about watching my back every time I went outside. Outside of the game, no one was out for my life. Why would anyone walk away from that?

Gold and Silver ran a cruel game in order to watch people try to kill each other for money and some mystery prize. I guess it shouldn’t be a surprise that they didn’t care about much other than themselves and what could keep them entertained.

Gold drove me home in the same black car he used to take me to the hotel the first time. I couldn’t help but wonder if it had been stolen. I sat with Hue in my lap as he stared down Adonis, who was now a cat in the back seat.

“We’re not taking you away forever. You’ll be able to visit this place,” Gold said. “And you’ll get to see so much more of the world with us.”

I wanted to tell him that I’d seen more than enough of what was out in the world and didn’t want to see anything else. Instead, I stayed quiet. There was no point in arguing with him. I just wanted to get home and go back to bed. Later on, maybe tonight, I would have to think of a plan. Something that could help me get out of this mess. I needed to talk with Zero-zero. He’d and Ninety-one would be home later than usual. I’d have to speak to him in the morning then.

Eventually, we neared the apartment building. Glancing at the dashboard clock, I saw that it wasn’t even noon yet. The morning seemed so long that it felt like it should be late afternoon already.

“I’ll see you at the finale,” Gold said as he stopped in the parking lot.

“I’m not playing your game,” I said while opening the door.

“Come on, it isn’t that bad. You must have had some fun playing.”

“You’re not the ones getting attacked and shot at, what would you know?” I shot back.

“Okay, that’s fair. But at least come to watch. Don’t you want to see how it ends? To see what the end prize is?”

“What I want is to be left alone. And stop breaking into my home.”

With Hue in my arms, I closed the door and headed inside. The first thing I did was take a warm shower to calm my nerves. I knew sleep wasn’t much of an option, so instead, I set tor reading some of the books I had laying around. At least that way, my mind wouldn’t be forced to think about the last several hours. It brought me little comfort from the anxiety buzzing at the back of my head, but it was better than nothing.


	12. Chapter 12

I was asleep when Zero-zero and Ninety-one came home. I only woke up because Hue decided to walk over me instead of flying when my door opened. Through the light from the ajar door, I saw Ninety-one.

"Sorry. I didn't mean to wake you," he said softly.

"It’s fine," I said through a yawn. "How was dinner?"

"It was nice," He said with a small smile. "Anyway, I'll let you sleep."

I nodded and he closed the door. I shifted into a more comfortable position, ready to get back to sleep when the door opened again. This time it was Zero-zero.

"Hey. I know Ninety-one just checked on you, but I wanted to know how you were doing after this morning."

"Yeah, well, something else happened after I left. Not now but later I need to talk to you about it."

"Is it bad?" he asked, concern growing in his voice.

"Sort of, yes." he gave a confused look. "It isn't immediate."

He took a step inside the room. "What isn't?"

I took a breath and sat up. "The bus I was taking home got hijacked. The people who run the game I was in did it so they could speak with me. Do you remember the Enforcers I told you and Ninety-one about?"

"Yes." Zero-zero moved further in the room and partially closed behind himself.

"They are here and working for Gold and Silver. The Overseers are here too.

Well, they are working with, maybe for, Gold and Silver. I'm not sure why though, but they are made at me for taking the core from Goldsboro."

"You have it? How?"

"I don't know. I didn't know cores existed before today. But I think because of that Gold and Silver's mother want to take me away somewhere."

"Away as in someplace in Burilmont or another city?"

"They called it the stronghold and the way they were talking, its far from here."

"You're here now, does that mean we have time?"

"Gold and Silver wanted to finish their game, so at least until the end of the week."

"That's only a few days," he said, more to himself than me. "This isn't something we should wait on. We need to think of something to stop them."

"Ashe said that they have complete control over the city. With the Enforcement, there's nothing we can do," I told him. With them being able to make themselves invisible, we wouldn't be able to see them coming anyway.

"Then we'll leave and find somewhere else to live."

"Ashe said that everywhere else is dangerous. I'd rather go with them than force you two to leave."

"Neither of us is going to allow them to take you. You're our family. It wouldn't feel right being here without you. We'll find a way through this. We just need a plan."

"Okay." I appreciated that he was willing to find a way to keep me around, but I knew what the Enforcers were capable of. We'd need more than just a plan to stop them. I didn't know the specifics of what Gold and Silver could do with the power of Burilmont's core at the disposal, but if it was anything like what I did to Goldsboro on accident, I'd hate to find out what focused intent would result in.

Zero-zero rested his hand on my shoulder. "Tomorrow, we'll go back to see Ashe. He might know a way to help. If not then we'll leave together."

"Ninety-one is going to be upset," I muttered.

"He'll understand."

"What if he doesn't? It’s my fault this is happening."

"You didn't mean to take the core."

"But I chose to join their game. If I hadn't found those glasses and gone out that night, then we wouldn't have to worry about any of this."

Zero-zero leaned down and hugged me. "It’s going yo be alright. We're going to make it okay."

Nodding, I hugged him back and did my best not to cry. "Thank you."

Sleep didn't come easy after that. I spent most of the night staring into the darkness of dreading tomorrow and the days to come. Was there really a way out of this mess without leaving Burilmont? Hiding in the library might work for a while, definitely not forever. They already know where I live, and they could easily go after Ninety-one or Zero-zero. Why couldn't I have just stayed home that day?

The next morning was the same as the day before. Zero-zero came to wake me up. I somehow managed to sleep off later into the night, although it wasn't restful. He and Ninety-one chatted over breakfast while I was quickly weighed down by where my choices had led me.

"Are you alright?" Ninety-one asked.

"I'm just tired. I didn't get much sleep," I muttered out, not lifting my gaze from my food.

"You were sleeping fine when I checked on you. Are you feeling sick?"

My tired mind scrambled to think of a reasonable lie. "I, uh, went to bed really early so I was wide awake later on."

"Well, at least you have all day to rest up and get back to normal."

"They're coming with me to work again today," Zero-zero told him.

"Really? I wish I could bring you to work too?"

"My boss liked Sol and invited them back." I nodded quietly in agreement.

"Are you sure you're up for it?" Ninety-one asked.

"Yeah. I'll be fine once I fully wake up."

"Alright, if you say so."

Once we had finished eating, I gathered everyone's plates and took them to the sink. I rinsed them off while the other two finished getting ready before going to do so myself. I didn't eat much of my breakfast. My nerves made my stomach feel off. I only had four days until Gold and Silver's mother would take me away from here.

"Hey." looking over to the door, I saw Zero-zero. "Are you sure that you're up for this? I can talk to Ashe for you. Or we can wait another day."

"No. I'll be fine going. Besides, it will be better if I am there to explain what happened."

"Okay. Well, Ninety-one and I are ready to go when you are."

I looked to Hue, who was sitting on my bed, eyeing Zero-zero. I considered taking him, but after what happened at the dealership I didn't feel comfortable with him being outside. On the other hand, I did want him to be taken again.

"Should I take him with us?" I asked.

"If you're comfortable with Ashe knowing about him, then I'd say yes. But hide him in your back. Ninety-one will get suspicious if he sees him."

A few minutes later we had loaded up onto the van and on our way to Ninety-one's office building. Hue was curled up in my backpack that sat on my lap. Zero-zero kept the radio on a music station. For some reason, I felt anxious about speaking with Ashe. Everything had been fine yesterday. He had been plenty helpful. He'd said that we were allowed to come back if we had more to ask. So why did I feel weird about this?

Soon enough we'd dropped Ninety-one off and were on our way to the Recall office. This time Ashe was standing in the main room of the office. Today he was dressed in a full police uniform. He was standing in the small kitchen-like area talking with an older woman. When he first spotted Zero-zero he waved his hand and greeting. Just like yesterday, his expression changed when he noticed me. We headed to Zero-zero’s desk and waited for him to finish his conversation.

“Good morning Oscar, Sol,” Ashe greeted once he came up to us.

“Hello,” I said back.

“We need to talk with you,” Zero-zero said, getting to the point. “The people running the game want to take Sol away. You said yesterday that there was no way to stop them, but there must be something that can be done.”

“Let’s go to my office.” Ashe nodded, realizing the seriousness of our visit. He led us to the back and to his office. Zero-zero and I took a seat at the chairs as Ashe closed the door behind us. Once he sat down we began. “Why do they want to take you?”

“Their mother says that-”

“Mother?” Ashe asked.

“Yesterday Gold and Silver had me abducted by hijacking a bus. They took me to meet their mother and three other men. She says that I’m a Colonizer and that I need to go with them for training,” I explained.

“I heard about a bus hijacking. The victims said that the driver was thrown by something none of them could see. Is that true?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know what did it? It couldn’t have been a regular person.”

I took a breath. “It was an Enforcer. They are-”

“I know.” I blinked at him. “Sorry. I am familiar with them. As well as the people they work for. Many of the people in the inner section of Recall are.”

“The Overseers.”

“You’re familiar with them?” I nodded. “Then you know how dangerous they can be. Their only goal is to gain control of cores and expanded their control of the world. Recall has been trying to fight against them since it was first constructed, but without a way to gain control if them ourselves, they’ve always had the upper hand. From what I know, they rarely except members. Let alone unwilling ones.”

“I think they are separate groups. Gold and Silver’s mother didn’t seem to be working for them. They were afraid of her.”

“So the Colonizers are different. That means another group out to control core. Considering how stable Bruilmont is, they have a better grasp at it than either of us. With them working together, we’re going to have a serious problem in the future.”

“Is there any way to take the core away from them?” Zero-zero asked.

“None that I know of,” Ashe said. “Our understanding of cores is very limited. Recall has never successfully taken control of a core. We only know it is possible because we know the Overseers are able to do it. We are making progress in our research but it is slow.”

“So you can’t help us,” Zero-zero asked.

“Without taking the core, we’re powerless to do anything. I’m sorry.”

“Then our only choice is to leave,” Zero-zero muttered. He gazed at the floor with a darkened look on his face.

“If I may ask,” Ashe spoke, “why do they want to take you in the first place? Why do they believe you are one of them?”

“They said that I took the core of Goldsboro, the city I’m from.” Ashe’s eyes widened in shock. I could feel Zero-zero watching me.

“How,” Ashe asked.

“I don’t know. I didn’t even know about cores until yesterday. But,” I reached to the backpack sitting on my lap and unzipped it. Almost instantly, Hue poked his head out to look around. There was a soft sound of surprise from Ashe. “Apparently, the power is in him.”

“Where did you get him?” Ashe asked.

“Well,” I passed a glance at Zero-zero, “when I got him he was just a fish. He changed into a dragon after being exposed to color around Goldsboro.”

“Color?” Ashe questioned. “I’d heard that cores could be odd in nature, but I’d never imagined it could be something so common.”

“Colors don’t exist in Goldsboro,” I explained. “Everything is greyscaled. He got the first one by accident and started leading me to the other five afterward.”

“Interesting. So he could sense them and led you to their locations. What else happened?”

“Well, each time he got to a color it appeared on his back and the city would change. The first time, bright red fish swam around the city’s sky. After that, blue trees sprouted everywhere. Then the city was lifted into the sky by gigantic yellow rocks, while much smaller ones floated around us. Green were crystals that sprouted up like the trees. Orange was a river that flowed overhead. And purple was mostly just clouds.”

“Incredible.”

“You never told us that part,” Zero-zero said.

I kept my gaze on Hue. “I didn’t think you would believe me.”

“After what happened at Heita, you don’t think we’d believe that?”

I shrugged. “Heita felt more believable than Goldsboro.”

“Not to interject, but may I see him?” Ashe asked.

“He’s not very friendly,” I warned before standing up. I pulled Hue from my bag and set him on Ashe’s desk. Ashe stared in wonder as Hue looked up at him. When he reached a hand out towards him, Hue backed away and jumped up to try and fly off. But the leash on his harness didn’t let him go far, so he settled for landing on my lap instead.

“The core turned your fish into a dragon. Unbelievable.” He pointed to Hue’s back. “You mentioned six colors. What about the others?”

“He got the lighter colored blue and pink from Heita, and the darker red shortly after we arrived here.”

“Could that mean he has those cores in him too?” Zero-zero asked.

“I’m not sure. I’ve never encountered a dragon before.”

“They called him a familiar,” I explained. “I think Gold and Silver each have one too. They aren’t dragons, but they can transform into different animals. Gold’s turned to a dragon once. Their mother might have one too, but I’m not sure.”

“If they all have one, then it could explain why they see as one of them,” Zero-zero said. “What else did they say about familiars?”

“They said that all Colonizers have one. Apparently, the Overseers were in Goldsboro to find me, or a Colonizer in general and thought it was Hines. Gold’s mother said that since he didn’t have an animal with him he was obviously the wrong choice. She was really angry with them about that.”

“What’s her name?” Ashe asked.

“I don’t know. She didn’t talk to me much. She mostly yelled at the Overseers then told me that she would be taking me to someplace called the stronghold.”

“If they are a big enough group to have such a location, then they are likely just as powerful as the Overseers. I’ll need to tell the others in Recall about them.”

“What about Sol?” Zero-zero asked. “What can we do to stop these people from taking them.”

“Going back to your dragon. If he is able to take control of cores, then it may be possible to do the same with Burilmont’s. This is merely guesswork, but that might be your best chance. Fine where they have to core and try and take it.”

“Gold’s mother said that they help them control the cores. But I don’t know how to control a core. What if they don’t back down if I manage to take it? I don’t know how to use it against them.”

“If you manage to take it then I can try to arrange something with the police force. Without the core, they are just regular people.”

“What about the Enforcers?” I ask.

“I’ll be dangerous, but we can take them down too. They’re hard to take down, but it isn’t impossible.”

“Can’t they make themselves invisible?” Zero-zero asked.

“I’ve never heard of them doing that before, so it might be something limited to here with the help of the city’s core. Without it, they will lose that power.”

“They have the core. For Sol to get it, they would have to get close to them or their familiars. How long do you think getting the core will take? We don’t know how much time we will have.”

“Do you know how long it will be until they come for you?”

“The end of the week, only because Gold and Silver want to finish their game.”

“Four days,” Ashe said to himself. “I’d figured we were reaching the end of the game. I can try to arrange it so that the police halt the game and by you more time. If they are willing to wait to take you, they might postpone it even longer if they can. It’s an assumption, but the best I can come up with.”

“Didn’t you quit that game?” Zero-zero asked. “Won’t it be suspicious if Sol suddenly shows up to play?”

“Yes, but Gold invited me to watch the ending with them.”

“Then that will have to be our chance,” Ashe said.

“Are you sure about this?” Zero-zero asked. “All of this sounds too dangerous. As much as I want to live here, risking losing you isn’t worth it. We can leave and find another place to live.”

I shook my head. “It is my fault I am in this mess. I want to try and get myself out.”

“If you are certain about this then okay. But we need to speak with Nin- Nicolas about this too. He should know what’s going on.”

“You don’t have to decide right now,” Ashe added. “Take some time to think it all through. If you decide to go through then I’m here to help. If not, I can at least recommend some places that might be a good place to go. They aren’t as safe as here, but they are definitely livable. We have Recall connections that would be able to help you out as well.”

“Thank you,” I said, “but I want to do this.”

“Let’s talk to Nicolas first,” Zero-zero said, his voice strained.

“Okay.”

“We’ll talk to you soon,” he said as he stood from his seat.

Ashe reached into a drawer of his desk and took out a business card. He handed it to Zero-zero. “Call me if you need anything.”

“We will.”

I returned Hue to my backpack and left behind Zero-zero. He politely acknowledged his coworkers when the greeted him as we passed. He was headed toward the exit.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“To get Ninety-one,” the anxiety was clear in his voice. “We should have told him about this yesterday. He needs to know about this.”

“Can’t we do it later?”

“No. He’s already going to be hurt that we kept something like this from him. Doing it any later will only make it worse.”

“Alright,” I said with a heavy breath. Today was only getting worse.


	13. Chapter 13

We were sitting at a bench outside of Ninety-one’s work with Zero-zero between us. He had been confused, worried even when we called and told him that we were downstairs. That feeling probably only got worse we Zero-zero said that we had something important to tell him. In the end, Zero-zero had done a majority of the talking. I only chimed in when needing to explain what I had left out in my initial recount of what happened in Goldsboro. Through it all, Ninety-one listened quietly, but I could see the confused frustration growing on his face.

“Why did you wait to tell me this?” It was the first thing he said once Zero-zero finished explaining what was going on.

“We thought the problem limited to just the game,” Zero-zero tried to explain.

“Not last night when we got home. Not this morning. You knew it had grown past that and you still didn’t tell me anything.”

“We didn’t want to worry you.”

“You think I’m not worried now? Sol could have been killed the other night and you didn’t think I should know about that? You didn’t think I should've known that Sol was abducted yesterday? Or that our home has been broken into twice? These are things you two should have talked to me after they happened.”

“I’m sorry,” I muttered.

“Sol, I know we haven’t known each other that long, but I wish you would have trusted me with this. Yes, there is much I could have done but you still could have talked to me about it. We’re still new to each other, but we’re family aren’t we?”

“Yes,” I said, turning my gaze to the ground.

From the corner of my eye, I saw him turn to Zero-zero. “But you’ve known me for years. I would have thought that at least you would have trusted me with knowing this. Or at least come to me before going to some stranger.”

“Ashe knows about these people. He was our best chance of getting an understanding of all of this,” Zero-zero explained. “After Heita, I wasn’t sure how you were going to take any of this.”

“I’m sorry for not taking the destruction of our home as well as you did, but you still should have told me about this.”

“I’m the one that asked him not to,” I admitted, speaking up.

“And you didn’t try to convince them otherwise, did you?”

“No,” Zero-zero said.

“No. Instead, you waited until you know you couldn’t hide it.” Zero-zero didn’t answer. With a frustrated huff, Ninety-one turned away from us. We silently waited for him to speak again. After a minute or so he stood from the bench. “Let’s go.”

“Where?” I asked.

“We need to pack and leave,” he said coldly.

“We still have four days,” Zero-zero reminded him.

“And if I get the core, we don’t have to leave.”

“You don’t even know if you can get it. And what about afterward? Won’t those people retaliate against you?”

“Ashe is going to arrest them.”

“What if he fails? What if you fail? What is your plan if everything goes wrong? Neither of you can say if this plan of yours is going to work or not.”

“Ashe gave us time to think about it. Sol wants to go through with it.”

“Don’t go through with it,” Ninety-one practicably begged. “this place isn’t worth the risk you’re taking.”

“But it is my fault this is happening. I have to try and fix it.”

“Just because you made a few bad decisions doesn’t this your fault. And it absolutely doesn’t mean that should put yourself in danger just so we can keep living in this city.” When I didn’t give in he turned to Zero-zero. “You’re just going to let them do this?”

“I don’t agree with it either, but Sol’s should decide for themselves.”

“Even if it means we’ll never see them again?”

Zero-zero turned his gaze from Ninety-one. “They aren’t a child. We can’t decide for them.”

“Do you even care?” Ninety-one shouted.

Zero-zero snapped his head up to look at him. “Of course I do. I’ve tried to convince them otherwise, but they have decided. So at the very least, I want to help them the best I can.”

Ninety-one scowled at him. “Fine. Let’s just go home.”

“Fine,” Zero-zero said as he got to his feet.

The ride back home was silent. No one spoke. The radio was off. The only sound was from the van and the wind outside. The feeling of guilt felt like it was choking me. I had expected Ninety-one to be angry with me, but not Zero-zero. He was just trying to help. I just didn’t want Ninety-one to be upset with me. But now he was, with both us.

It made me want to rethink trying to take the core. Ninety-one was right, we had no way of knowing if it would actually work. Maybe we should just leave. Get a few days head start before Gold or the others realize anything. Ashe said he had a list of places. Maybe we could pick one that wasn’t too close to here.

Things were just as quiet between all of us when we got home. As soon as we stepped through the door, both Ninety-one and Zero-zero when to their rooms. After locking the front door, I headed to my room. I let Hue out of the backpack and sat on the bed. For a while, I just sat there doing nothing. My mind was too tired to focus on anything.

I laid down. I wished that I could go back to sleep and have all of this be undone when I woke up. At some point, while I was staring into my wall, Hue walked in front of me. He nudged his head into my face.

“Hey,” I said lowly as I reached out to pet him. “If we do this I’m going to need your help. I don’t know anything about cores, but you have Goldsboro’s right. Do you think you can take the one here too?”

He smelled my face and licked at my nose.

"I'm serious Hue," I said while nudging him back "I need to know if this is possible. If you have Goldsboro's core, I need you to show me. I need to know if we actually have a chance."

He blinked at me before taking a step away from me. Hue shifted his feet on the bed as if making sure he had a stable stance. He then arched his back. Six of the colors down his back began to glow. They were the same six he got from Goldsboro.

His long whiskers gentle drifted upwards as all the color faded from my room. My body felt light as was lifted off the bed. Looking around, I saw that everything in my room was beginning to drift into the air. It was just like when Goldsboro was destroyed.

Stretching my arms out, I reached for my bed cover to pull myself back down. I managed to grab it, but only succeeded in pulling it up with me. I was just about to ask Hue to stop, when I noticed a group of tiny fish, no larger than half the length of my small finger, passing by my head. They were the same familiar bright red. I watched as they swam out of the open door of my room.

I let myself drift back, allowing myself to see more of the apartment. In there, I could see more fish moving around, but they weren't the only things that appeared. Small, bright blue tree branches were now sprouting out of the wall. A few of their blue leaves were fluttering down from them, landing amongst the green crystals that had come up from the floor. Small yellow rocks were floating in different places around the room. Near the ceiling sat purple clouds which the fish swam in and out of. In the middle of it, all was an orange river that flowed in a ring.

"Sol?" Ninety-one called out.

Grabbing into the door frame, I pulled myself out of my room. Down the hallway, I saw him and Zero-zero hoving in the air. They were using the branches to move themselves forward.

"What's going on?" Zero-zero called out.

"Are you alright?" Ninety-one asked.

"I'm fine. I asked Hue to show me if he had the core from Goldsboro."

"Hue is doing this?" Ninety-one asked.

"Can you get him to stop?"

With my hands still on the door frame, I turned myself so that I was facing inside the bedroom. "Okay, Hue. That's good enough you can stop now."

He had still been standing on the bed. His gaze was straight ahead as if he was concentrating on using his power. He blinked before turning to me and sitting down. All at once everything returned to normal. There were three hard thuds as all of us were dropped to the floor. Holding my head, I hissed in pain. From the hall, I heard Ninety-one and Zero-zero muttering in complaint.

"Sorry," I told them as I picked myself off the floor. In hindsight, I should have taken him into the library first.

I never told either of them about the library yet. Was it too late to do that? Would Ninety-one get more upset if I did? Maybe waiting was a better idea? At least until he calmed down. For now, I mention it.

"I guess that means getting the core is possible," Zero-zero said as he and Ninety-one approached me.

"I still don't think you should do it," Ninety-one said.

"But if this work then we don't have to leave," I told him.

"And if it doesn't, then you'll be taken away. Maybe even worse if they find out what you're doing. Your safety isn't worth the risk."

"But Ashe is going to have the police there too," I told him.

"He's planning a raid wherever it is that they are going to watch the game at," Zero-zero explained. "The police have been trying to catch these people for a while. If Sol does this, they'll be arrested and their games will be over."

Ninety-one turned to him. "Why does it have to be Sol? Ashe is part of the game, why can't he do it?"

"Sol is the only one who can get close to them, and who can also take the core from them," Zero-zero reminded him. “They’ll have the Burilmont’s police force for back up. They won’t be alone in this.”

Still not convinced, Ninety-one looked to me. “You don’t have to take this risk. Even with the police helping you, it is still dangerous. Are you sure about this?”

“Yes,” I told him.

He gave a deep sigh. “Alright. I guess I can’t stop you. But I want us to be prepared in case the worse does happen.”

"What do you have in mind?" Zero-zero asked.

"I want us to have some things packed up, just in case the worse happens. I want us to be ready to go if we need to."

"Okay," I nodded.

"Once we find out where they will be watching the game, we'll park some nearby and wait," Zero-zero said.

Packing wouldn’t be hard for us to do. We didn’t have much as it was, it would only be a matter of getting a few boxes and containers. It would have been a perfect moment to mention the library. Optimal even, but I didn’t. Instead, I agreed to go out with them later in the day to pick up supplies. For now, everyone wanted to rest. It had been a long morning. Later, Zero-zero would call Ashe and tell him we would go forward with the plan. A decision had been made. A backup plan set.

When I returned to my room and sat on my bed, I felt lighter. I was still concerned about what would happen in the coming days, but for now, the immediate stress was gone. I tried to relax and take in my newly acquired peace, but I couldn’t help but wonder about Hue’s power over the core.

He had used it so easily. How long had he been able to do that? What else was he able to do? Could he transform like Adonis and Nyx? I looked at Hue. He was laying next to me on the bed, looking across the room and out the window. I took my phone from my pocket and searched for a picture of a cat. I found an image of a solid white one and showed it to Hue.

“Can you transform into this?” I asked. Reaching his neck out he smelled at the phone and looked up at him. I sighed through my nose. Sometimes it was impossible to tell what Hue could understand and what he couldn’t. “I need you to turn into a cat.”

He returned his gaze to the image for a moment as if analyzing it. He got to his feet. Standing, his body began to glow. It moments it was engulfed a bright white light. Through it, I could see his form changing. When the light faded Hue shook himself. A few strands of his new fur already sheading onto my bed.

Although not by much, he looked to be larger than what I assumed a normal cat would be. I’d never been a real cat before, so it was hard to know for sure. He was a long-haired breed. He’d kept his grey eyes and dark claws. The colors on his back were gone.

Reaching out, I touched the top of his head. Hue pushed his head into my hand as I pet his head. His fur was soft and I couldn’t help but smile. I moved my hand down his back as he stepped closer to me. Lifting his head up to me, Hue meowed, revealing his black tongue and grey mouth. He even sounded like a real cat.

Laying on the bed, I continued to pet him. A sense of hope began to fill me. Hue could do what Adonis and Nyx could do. He could use Goldsboro’s core. We have a chance of succeeding. A chance of winning against Gold, Silver, their mother, and the Overseers. We’d be able to stay in Burilmont. I couldn’t help but smile. We wouldn’t lose our home.

“Hey, Ashe is going to get everything arranged,” Zero-zero said as he poked his head into my room. He was about to leave when he spotted Hue on the bed. Without a word, he simply pointed in confusion.

“Hue can transform into different animals,” I explained. “This is his first time doing it.”

“Alright then,” he said with a nod.

It was a bit passed noon when the three of us went out to get packing supplies. I still didn’t mention the library. I didn’t feel like the best time. During the drive, Ninety-one and Zero-zero had been lightly chatting about what they should bring with them. After earlier, I wanted to let them get back to normal.

Before leaving, I had mentioned that Hue had turned into a cat, as well as possibly other animals. He had only shown a flash of confusion before I quickly explained that this was something new. From not too far off, Zero-zero had been watching for his reaction. Ninety-one didn’t seem too bothered by it, but considering everything else, Hue being able to transform into a cat wasn’t worth much thought.

Now as we made our way through the store, picking up food for whatever trip we might end up having to make. It was mostly canned food and cases of bottled water. I wasn’t sure how far Ninety-one thought we would have to travel. He had done the same thing in Heita, but he hadn’t known how close Burilmont was. Although, this time we wouldn’t just be traveling to the nearest city. If we did have to go, it would be to somewhere that was safe, under the guidance of Ashe and Recall.

“That should be enough,” Ninety-one said as he looked between the two shopping carts we had. One was specifically filled with the boxes so that they wouldn’t get crushed between the cans at water cases.

“You should probably get food for Hue,” Zero-zero said. Hue had never seemed bothered by eating regular human food, but near him or Ninety-one thought it was good for him. There was no way to check what dragons ate, so they had agreed that dog food was the best thing we could get for him.

“Okay.”

“Meet us at the checkout,” Ninety-one said as I began to move towards the pet section of the supermarket.

This place was much larger than most of the stores than I’d been. We’d shopped here a handful of times since arriving in Burilmont so I didn’t have a good mental map of the place yet. Eventually, I spotted the hanging sign for pet products. I took a step out onto the main walkway and was almost hit by someone’s cart.

“Excuse me,” I said, taking a step back.

“Sorry,” the other person said. Looking at them, I saw that it was Quince. She looked just as surprised to see me as I was to see her. “Hey.”

“Hello,” I said with a nod. I shifted my feet. Even though we lived in the same city, I hadn’t honestly expected to ever see her again. An uncomfortable silence began to grow between us. In a rush to break it, I asked her a question. “Did they let you stay in the game?”

“Yes,” she answered after a bit of a pause. “They didn’t seem to care much that I was on my own. I don’t know if you got my message, but they were looking for you.”

“Yes, I got it. Thanks.”

“Are they making you rejoin the game?”

I shook my head, “No. It was about something different.”

She didn’t press the issue, which was a bit of a surprise. “I wanted to say sorry, about forcing you to play the game with me.”

“You wanted to know what happened to your parents. I can understand that,” I said while looking away, pretending to be distracted by something.

“With Ashe’s help, I will.”

I nodded, not sure what to say to that. I don’t know if he was going to let her in on the plan. Whether it worked or not, there was a chance that she might not get her answers regardless. The thought made bothered me, but it couldn’t be helped. There was very little I could do as it is.

“I guess I’ll see you around, probably,” Quince said as she took a step forward with her cart.

“Yeah,” I said with a nod. She had taken a few steps when I added,“ They are having the finale in four days.”

She stopped and looked back at me. “Really? Do you know what it is?”

I shook my head. “No, just when it is.”

Her gaze shifted downward, unfocused. “Okay, thanks.”

With that, she went on her way and I went on mine. There was no point in telling that I’d be watching it play out with Gold and Silver. I wouldn’t help her or myself. What if she asked me to help her out? As much as I sympathized with her, I had to concentrate on getting the core. With it out of their control, there would be other chances for her to find answers. Ashe may even investigate it for her. But that was only if everything went as plan.


	14. Chapter 14

The days leading up to the game’s finale were odd. There was an overhanging sense of dread that followed us. All the while, Ninety-one insisted that we spend time together. Not as in leave the apartment. None of us left since we went to the supermarket. Instead, he wanted us to spend most of our time in the living room. Neither Zero-zero or I asked why. We knew he was just being protective. We had no right to tell him not to worry.

For the next few days, all of our meals were especially home-cooked. Ninety-one appeared to use it as a to distract himself. In those days, we cooked more than we had in our entire time in Burilmont. When Ninety-one wasn’t cooking, he was cleaning or going through the boxes before we moved them into the van. He’d packed and unpacked them so many times that I’d lost count.

The evening before the finale, Ashe arrived at our apartment to give us a briefing on the plan. My end was just to get the core and notify Ashe. After that, the police force would take over. While he was there, Ashe gave us a map of the safe areas that were around Burilmont. Ninety-one has insisted on getting as soon as possible.

“Just to warn you, these places may be safe, but they are also odd. There is also a chance that they could have changed since our people last reported anything on them,” Ashe had told us shortly before leaving.

I had only glanced at it, but from what I could see, it was just a normal map with a few circles on it. I wasn’t sure why, but I had been expecting something a bit more than that. Either way, we had our escape plan if we needed it.

A few hours later, I was waiting inside the van to make sure no one came by and stole anything out of it, while Ninety-one and Zero-zero finished taking the last few boxes down. We only had a dozen or so boxes in all. Most of them were clothes, we hadn't gathered many personal items yet. I had one small box filled with books and other with Hue's things.

We had about three boxes of canned food. The nearest safe city wasn't that far away, so I doubted that we'd come close to eating a fraction of it if we did have to leave, but at least we wouldn't need to go shopping for a while. There were also some blankets piled on one of the seats next to me. Hue was resting on top of them.

He had turned himself back from a cat one we came back home from the supermarket. He had only transformed back once, only because I asked him too. The second time, he did need me to show him a picture. But he'd only stayed that way for a short while. I guess he didn't like being in a different form like the other familiars.

A knock on the side of the van drew my attention. Looking up, I was surprised, almost unnerved to see Gold walking around the side. He stood in front of the open doors and smiled up at me. He was dressed in a black dress shirt and pants. Gold earrings were in his ears. Like always, Adonis was wracked loosely around his next. Beside me, Hus shifted to his feet.

"Hey there. Already packing up?" Gold asked as he looked around the inside of the van. A brief flash of panic when through my chest. I quickly scrambled my thoughts together in a believable lie. However, he just continued on. "We would have given you time to do it after the game. The Enforcers are good with heavy lifting."

"I don't want those things anywhere near me."

"They're off-putting to look at, I'll admit, but they are useful. They do whatever they are told. They are a lot more sturdy than," he waved his hand a dismissive way "people."

"Why are you here," I asked, changing the subject.

"Right, I wanted to ask if you would reconsider join my sister and me in watching the end of our game. It'll be the last one for a while."

"I didn't think you were giving me a choice," I muttered bitterly.

He looked at me with a confused expression before smiling again. "Why wouldn't we? The game is my and Silver's past time, there's no reason to force you to watch. But if you do choose to come, we'll have food and drinks to enjoy while we watch."

His casualness of both the game and having completely missed my point was frustrating. I pushed the feeling aside. It did matter if he understood or even knew that I was upset by the end of tomorrow, I'd never see him or the other two anyway.

"What time does it start?" I asked.

"You're going to join us?" Gold said happily. A wide smile spread over his face. He moved so that he was sitting at the side of the van's open doorway. "At about eleven in the morning. I will come to pick you up. Were going to have a set up with a large screen to watch everything."

"What's the final task?"

He shook his head. "That's a surprise. I can't have you telling your friend about it."

"Quince isn't my friend. You and Silver made us play together," I reminded him.

"That was just to make things interesting while kept an eye on you."

"What do you mean," I asked with a frown.

"Well, after those Overseers failed, my mother had started searching through the nearby areas for any sign of you. Then a month ago the core reacted to an unknown Colonizer entering the city."

"How?" I asked.

He shrugged as if it should have been common knowledge. "It's like having a sensor around the parameter. We do it for situations like this. We don't exactly get notified when a new Colonizer is born. Most of them aren't like Silver and me. Anyway, it wasn't hard to find out that it was either you or one of your housemates."

"How did you know it was us? Why not anyone else."

Gold gave a light chuckled as he stood and stepped up into the van. He took a seat next to me. "People don't leave the city. You three were the first new arrivals in decades. It may not have seemed like it bus something like that causes a bit of a buzz. Especially with the people my sister and I hang around."

Other people knew about us coming here? Was he talking about people like Hill and Black or the Overseers? No one new has come in decades? Has the world been like this for that long? How many years did Gold and Silver have control over this place?

"After about a month of searching, we couldn't believe our luck when you found your way into our game. We couldn't let you just vanish. So we sent one of the Enforcers to trail you." Gold continued while Adonis stretched herself out towards me. I decided against moving away from her.

"What?" I nearly shouted. They had one of those things following me. How closely? Did they already know about the plan to take the core? Did they know about what Ashe was doing? Were we walking into a trap? If we were then why was he being so casual about this? Was he trying to tell me that there was no point in even trying? If that was the case then why no just come out and say it? Was he just playing with me?

Realizing my anger and discomfort, Gold held his hand out towards me but I moved away from him. "Only for that one night, so we knew where to find you. I promise it was just that one time."

I pressed my lips together. I didn't completely believe him. There was more to this. I could feel it. He's being too open about all of this. A few days ago he was going to make me compete in his game with people who wanted to kill me, just for a chance to ask him a few questions. Why was everything free to the open now?

"Why are you just telling me all of this?"

"Why not? You're going to find out soon enough anyway." A wide smile spread across his face as he took hold of my shoulder. "Oh. If we're lucky mother will let me mentor you. I've never been one before, but I know I do a good job."

"You mentor each other?" I asked. How many of them were there that they essentially had a learning program in place.

"Of course. Have to learn from somewhere, right? New Colonizers are rare, so getting to be a mentor is a great private. Obsidian got to teach both Silver and me."

"Obsidian?" Just what I needed, another one of them to worry about.

"That's my mother's name. Mariah Obsidian. She probably won't let you call her Obsidian, though."

"Will she be watching the game tomorrow too?" I couldn't help but ask. That woman, Mariah, scared me. She commanded both the Overseers and the Enforcers. They must be frightened of her for a reason.

"No, she has other things planned." I suppressed a sigh of relief. After a moment, a disappointed look crossed his face. "Speaking of mother, I should get back to her. I'll be back to get you in the morning."

"Don't break in again," I told him as pulled Adonis from my neck. Gold reached out and she slithered up his arm.

"Alright, I'll be polite and knock this time." Gold said as he patted my head. Smiling to himself, he stood and stepped out of the van. Before leaving, he gave a small wave. "See you tomorrow."

Once he was gone, I rubbed my hands over my face. That man was confusing to speak with. Did he even understand that his mother was forcing me to leave my home? After a day he was suddenly acted like we were friends. I guess it didn't matter. After I got the core none of the last two weeks would matter and everything would be back to normal.

"Who was that?"

I looked up to seen Ninety-one and Zero-zero approaching. Each of them was holding a box. The last of what was needed to be packed up.

"That was Gold," I said, answered Ninety-one.

"Him?" Zero-zero said, confusion and disbelief lining his voice.

"He isn't what I imagined," Ninety-one commented while looking off to where Gold had walked. His black car had just left the parking lot.

I only nodded. I guess on the outside Gold didn't seem like the kind of person who would organize a game designed for people to hurt each other.

"What did he want?" Zero-zero asked, turning his attention back to me.

"He wanted to make sure that I'd be joining him tomorrow." I paused deciding whether I should tell them more. I didn't want to cause them anymore worry. Whether we succeed or I failed, it didn't really matter.

“He will be back tomorrow to take to watch the end of the game with him.”

With the last of the boxes loaded and the van locked up, we headed back inside for dinner. We ate in silence. None of us bothered to attempt a conversation. The weight of tomorrow was too heavy for us to pretend that everything was fine. I was the first to go to bed after eating. Not so much from being tired, just to escape the quiet, worried gazed of Ninety-one and Zero-zero.

After a shower, I sat in the library for a while. I still hadn’t told either of them about it and at this point wasn’t going to. Not anytime soon at least. Maybe once the stress of all of this has passed I will.

For now, I sat back in one of the white chairs and stared up at the stars. I couldn’t help but wonder if Gold and his family had anything like this? Was this something that came from the Colonizers or the Overseers? Was this common like familiars? Did Mariah have a familiar? She must have, though I’ve hadn’t seen it. Was it a regular animal or a dragon, like Hue?

How many more Colonizers were there? How long had they been around? Ashe didn’t know about them and he seemed to know a lot about the world. He knew about the Overseers. Is that mean that there were more of them? How common were the Overseers in other cities? Ashe said that they were trying to expand their control over areas, but why? What were the Colonizers' objectives?

There were so many questions and no way to get answers. None that would let me stay here, at least. I’d already learned that answers weren’t worth the risk of gaining them.

Ignorance is bliss. I’d heard that saying before. I didn’t understand what it meant. I still don’t, but I think I’m starting too.

I felt oddly normal waking up from my bed the next morning. The warm light of sunrise was peeking through my closed shades as always. I could hear the traffic below like normal. In those few moments when my mind was still clouded from sleep, I could almost pretend that everything was fine. But it wasn’t. I tried not to dwell on that. Not yet at least. For now, I needed to get ready.

When I set up to head to the bathroom, Hue glanced over to me from his spot on the floor. He was sitting in front of the door to the room, waiting to be let out. He’d started doing that over the last few days.

I could hear sounds coming from the rest of the apartment. Someone was cooking. Eggs and something else, guessing from the smell alone. Whoever it was, they had been up for a while if it was already this strong. If I had to guess, Ninety-one was my best bet.

He never woke up this early, even when he had to work. I wondered if he managed to get any sleep. I’d gotten a few hours, how many I wasn’t sure. I’d dozed off in the library before getting into bed. Not bothering to change out of my pajamas, I headed into the living room. I almost trip over Hue as he rushed to the smell of food. I didn’t get why he didn’t just fly, but who could say what caused him to do what he did.

Both Zero-zero and Ninety-one were up. The dining table was fully set with plates of pancakes and eggs that were still steaming. There was a fourth plate that was filled only with eggs. Hue was already on it, but the time I made it to the table.

“Good morning,” Ninety-one said as he set three glasses of orange juice around the table. He looked and sounded tired.

“Good morning,” I repeated back. I watched as Ninety-one lightly petted Hue’s back. Hue had been less aloof around him not that Ninety-one had started giving him cooked meals too.

“Hey,” Zero-zero greeted as he sat in the seat next to Hue. He eyed the dragon as he wolfed down his food. I didn’t think Zero-zero liked him eating on the table, but he never voiced it.

“How long have you two been up?” I asked, taking my seat across from Zero-zero.

“A while,” Ninety-one said, simply while also sitting down.

“I got up, when I heard him pacing around,” Zero-zero said tiredly. Ninety-one shot him a look, but he just went to eating his food.

“How are you feeling? You can still choose not to do this if you want,” Ninety-one said. Zero-zero passed a glance to him but stayed silent while pouring syrup over his pancakes.

I shook my head. “I haven’t changed my mind.”

“Okay. I just wanted to make sure.” His voice was quiet, distant.

We ate in silence after that. Each moment that passed felt like we were just waiting out the clock, unable to stand what time remained until Gold came to get me. There were still a few hours until then.

Surprisingly, I finished a good portion of my food. What I didn’t eat, Hue did. At least one of us was having a good morning. After breakfast, I showered and dressed. My clothes were casual and for a moment, I was worried that I would be underdressed in comparison to Gold and Silver. Though it was quick to pass.

In addition to bringing my backpack to carry Hue in, I also brought the 3D glasses and the folding knife I bought in Heita. I’d never used it. I still didn’t know how, but at least it was something. I didn’t know who else might be there. It was useless against an Enforcer. Against an Overseer, who knew?

I was sitting at the now cleaned off table with Ninety-one and Zero-zero, backpack at my feet when there was a knock at the door. Ninety-one almost jumped at the sound. With a breath, I stood to answer it, but Zero-zero beat me to it. The tiredness was gone from his eyes, now replaced with anger.

As suspected, Gold was standing on the other side. He was wearing black pants and a dark grey shirt that shining golden specks embedded in the fabric. HIs glittering hair was pulled into a long ponytail that sat over his shoulder. Golden makeup had been dusted over his eyelids. I lifted Hue from the table and walked towards them as he smiled at Zero-zero, Ninety-one following behind me.

“Hello,” Gold said politely. I was reminded that he saw no issue with being here. In a home filled with the people that he intended to take me from. “I’m here to pick up Sol.”

Zero-zero said nothing as he gazed over the man. He stood in the doorway, so Gold couldn’t enter as noticed Adonis around his neck. She flicked her dark tongue at him. Gold seemed unbothered by it or Zero-zero ignoring his greeting.

“Hello,” I said when I approached them, having already put Hue in my bag.

Gold looked around Zero-zero and smiled “Hey. Are you ready to go?”

“Yeah.” I turned back to Ninety-one. “I’ll see you later.”

I’ll admit I was a little unnerved when Ninety-one pulled me into a tight hug. It felt like a goodbye. That was the last thing I wanted to do. I hugged him back and also gave Zero-zero one as well.

“We’ll be right behind you kid,” he whispered before letting me go. With a final look to both of them, I left with Gold.

“They seem upset,” he said as we made our way down the hall. “I guess you told them that you’re leaving?”

Was he expecting me not to? Did he think I’d just leave without telling the people I live with anything? “Yeah.”

“It’s not like we’re leaving the moment the game ends. We have at least until tonight.” I wasn't sure if that was supposed to bring me comfort or he was just letting me know.

“I don’t want to have to leave them,” I said, maybe in hope that he might understand what he was trying to make me do. To avoid all of this.

“Mother won’t let you bring them with us. Regular people aren’t allowed in the stronghold,” he said, speaking as if I had asked to bring some animal I had stumbled across. I was looking forward to getting away from him and his family.


	15. Chapter 15

I half expected for Gold to take me to that hotel again. Instead, we stopped at the same rundown boarded-up building we had first met in. Thoughts of that still scratched at the back of my mind. Not only had I witnessed two people shoot each other, but that was also when I first got dragged into all of this. Although, from what Gold to me, I was going to get pulled into it from the moment I entered the Burilmont.

"This isn't going to be the same as last time, is it?" I asked.

We had parked on the back end of the building. The small parking lot was broken up, with plants growing from the cracks. Forgotten trash and potholes covered it. The building looked far worse in the daylight. I couldn't help but wonder why they used a place like this.

"That wouldn't be entertaining if we did that," Gold said with a laugh. "Most of the gameplay won't take place here. We're just watching it here."

Gold parked the car and led me to the door. It was made of glass and at one point had a large window at the top. It was now boarded up with plywood. Gold held it open so that I could enter first. The inside seemed to have been cleaned up a bit since I was last there. But that may have just been because there was enough light to see. The floors were broken up, yet cleared of any trash or debris cracked floor tiles. The walls were covered in a faded red wallpaper that now had pieces of it ripped down.

Ahead of us, an Enforcer stepped through a door. It looked almost brand new and recently painted in a light grey. Seeing us, it stepped aside so that we could enter. To my surprise, the floor was covered with a thick carpet. Inside was a dark room that was about twice the size of my room.

On the wall across from us were six large TV screens that were lined up in two rows. Each of the screens displayed nothing but static, which cast the room in a strange light. Placed in front of the screens was a long table with three chairs on one side. Silver was sitting in one of them.

"There you two are," Silver said without looking up from the cellphone in her hands, the light illuminated her face. "The Enforcers have finished preparing the food yet."

"That's fine," Gold said as we reached the table. He took the seat next to his sister. Sitting next to him, let Hue out of my backpack and set him on my lap.

The seats were plush. Sitting back, I sunk into the cushion behind me. In the odd light, the chair appeared to be black in color. The fabric was soft. I hadn't expected it to be so comfortable. The table in front of us shined as if it had been polished.

"Would you like to wait until they are done, or would you rather start now," Gold asked

"We might as well go ahead and begin. There's no telling how long this will take," Silver said before handing her phone to Gold. He gladly took it with a smile.

"No peeking," He said while purposely turning his back to me.

I considered massaging Zero-zero and Ashe about where we are. It would be as simple as using the map application to get the address and sending it out. But doing it right next to them seemed a bit risky. I'd have to wait until they were distracted or find a way to get away from them for a bit first.

Meanwhile, I looked around the room. Besides the screens and the table, there wasn't much else to it. It was empty otherwise. The walls looked to be painted black. Between the erratic light from the static and the darker in corners, it was impossible to know for sure.

Hue shifted in my lap as a large dog walked up from around the back of my chair. Wagging their tail, the dog set their paws on my lap. Recognizing her as Nyx, I reached out to pet the space between her floppy ears. Leaning forward, Nyx turned into a rabbit to sit on my lap, particularly forcing Hue to climb up on the back of the chair. I felt him rest his head on my right shoulder as Nyx laid down in my lap. I'd never seen a rabbit up close before and couldn't help but pet her.

"Okay, I sent the message out," Gold said as he turned to sit forward in the chair. He flashed me a smile. "Things should start getting exciting soon."

"By soon, you mean in about twenty minutes," Silver said.

She grabbed the remote that was sitting on the table. One by one, all of the screen switched to a news station. Each one on a different channel. The volume was low on all of them. We would not have been able to pick out one individual anyway. Thankfully, subtitles were displayed near the bottom of each screen. For now, normal segments such as the weather and traffic reports were playing.

"That gives us time to get comfortable," Gold said before standing. Reaching around his neck, he pulled Adonis from his shoulders and set her in my lap with Nyx. "I'll be right back."

I merely watched him with confusion as he left. I looked down at the familiars. Adonis flickered her tongue at Nyx, who lightly bumped her head against her in response.

"They like you," Silver said. I was a bit taken aback that she had spoken to me. I'd gotten the impression that she didn't care for me. "Are you normally this good with animals?"

"I- no. Hue and these two are the only ones I've been around," I answered. The only exception was a dog, but I didn't want to think about him right now.

She hummed at that and went back to looking through her phone. Whatever faint interest she had in me was gone. That was fine with me. I gazed back at the door. It was closed with no Enforcers in sight. I glanced over at Silver to make sure that she was still detracted and pulled my phone from my pocket. She was a good eight feet from me. Plenty of space for her to be unable to see the screen.

I'd gotten four texts from Ninety-one asking if I was alright. I was sure I hadn't been away from them for even an hour yet but as anxious as he'd been for the last few days it wasn't a surprise. I told him that I was fine as well as messaged him and Ashe the address of the building. Afterward, I quickly returned my phone to my pocket.

Again I glanced toward Silver. She was looking up at the TV screens. I did the same. They all seemed to be still showing regular content. Looking closer I realized the one on the bottom left stood out a bit. It displayed a video of what looked to be a hospital. The shot was from the ground but a far distance away. At the center of the shot was a red and white helicopter on a landing pad. The blades were spinning, not yet fast enough to take off.

The video zoomed in. There was a person in the helicopter, two of them. The first had a helmet on and appeared to be the one operating the machine. The second I recognized as Morgan. She was holding a gun to the pilot's head. From the subtitles, it said that Morgan had broken into the back section of the hospital and taken the pilot as a hostage. Was that the goal of this round? To steal a medical helicopter.

"Finally," Silver said. She didn't sound relieved. Her tone was more akin to boredom.

"Good. I made it just in time," I heard Gold say.

Looking back, I saw him heading towards us. Behind him were a group of four Enforcers. Each of them carrying trays in their hands. I nervously watched as they moved around the table as they set the trays in front of them. Each tray held three plates of assorted sushi. Some were fish over rice, others were wrapped in seaweed, and there were the kinds that were simply slices of fish. Never to the plates was a black cloth napkin with two plastic sticks sitting on top of it.

While I looked over the meal, the fourth Enforcer set out wine glasses in front of each of us and filled it with a light, carbonated liquid. They really were treating this as entertainment. Was this a normal thing for Colonizers to do or was it just these two?

"Have you ever had sushi before?" Gold asked as he took Adonis from my lab. I'd almost forgotten she was there.

"No," I said quietly.

"Then they probably can’t use chopsticks either," Silver said while reaching for the remote to the TVs. The volumes on the TVs went up. They weren't loud, but with all six of them going at the same time it was definitely chaotic.

"You can use your hands, it’s fine," Gold said while returning Adonis to his shoulders.

He and Silver quickly turn their attention to large screens. Another had started showing coverage of a different helicopter hijacking. This one was blue and yellow. I couldn't tell who was in it. Both this one and the first were mid-flight and moving over Burilmont. Stealing helicopters. I could already imagine the ways this could go wrong.

I turned my head so that it was close to where Hue was resting his head on me. "Go get the core."

From the corner of my eye, I saw him lift his head and look at me. A thick wave of panic grew in my stomach. Did he even know what I was asking for? Was finding the core different here than in Goldsboro? If the core was already taken, was he still able to detect it, let alone be able to take it?

"You are able to get it, right?" I whispered to him.

To my relief, Hue stood and jumped off the back of the chair. I glanced to make sure neither Gold or Silver noticed as he flew to the back of the room. He passed through the open door as the Enforcers were exited form. When he was gone, I had to do my best to suppress a sigh. It was all up to Hue and the police officers Ashe had gathered.

Gazing down, I realized Nyx was staring up at me. Her small rabbit nose twitched. I laid my hand on her back and began petting her. Thankfully, that seemed to appease her and she slumped to her side with her eyes closed.

I took a piece of sushi off one of the plates, the one with the fish laid over rice, and ate it. Despite not having eaten anything like it before, I enjoyed the taste. With not much of an option, I resigned myself two waiting for Hue to return. Taking another piece of sushi, I turned my attention back to the screens. There were now three helicopters flying around the city. The third was solid black and had the word 'police' printed on both sides with large blocky lettering.

Was Ashe in that one? It would have been the easiest one for him to get a hold of. Was Quince up there with him?

For now, the helicopters weren't doing anything more than flying over the city. Minutes passed as I watched the reporters struggled to come up with a reasonable idea for what was happening. From what I gathered from the scrolling texts, the news stations were treating the corresponding incidents as some sort of stunt, but they didn't know by who. Half of them mentioned that the police were getting ready to handle the situation.

"Sure they do," Silver said as she and Gold laughed. I forced an amusement smile when Gold looked over to me. He flashed me a grin.

"It's going to get better."

I hoped it wouldn't. I took a drink from my glass as he turned back to the screens. I nearly flinched at the taste of alcohol. I quickly swallowed it and shoved another piece of sushi in my mouth instead. I was not going to risk getting drunk here.

"The three helicopters are all nearing the downtown area," one of the news reporters said. Her voice was lined with what could best be described as dread.

The other stations had gone quiet. Each of them showed a different shot from the ground as the helicopter neared each other. The police copter and hung back. The other two continued to move closer. They stopped so that they were side by side, one facing the opposite direction from the other. All of the videos zoomed in closer to get shot of what was happening, but from their position on the ground, there wasn't much to see.

The audio from the TV suddenly exploded with gunshots and panicked screaming from the people at the scene. Morgan and the other player had begun shooting at each other from the helicopters. Just as quickly the video cut from the on-site camera to that of inside the news studios. At once the noise from before was back as the reporters spoke over each other.

"Come on," Silver said with annoyance. I watched as she picked up the remote.

The top middle screen changed. It was from high atop a building and showed a clear shot of the shootout happening. With another push of a bit from Silver, the rest of the screens changed to display similar footage from on top of buildings. Nothing else could be heard between the sound of the helicopters and gunfire.

In my lap, Nyx lifted her head up and looked back towards the door. Glancing, to the side, I saw that Adonis was doing the same. Gold didn't appear to notice. Looking back myself, I saw that the door appeared to be vibrating. It was switching between being solid red, then blue, and back to normal. The switch was occurring faster and faster until something appeared to pass through it.

The door returned to normal as Hue stepped into the room. I gazed at Gold and Silver, who still hadn't noticed anything. With Nyx still in my lap, Hue jumped and settled himself onto the back of my chair. He held a small, black device in his mouth.

Taking it, I saw that it was about the size of my longest finger. It was round in shape, with one flat side. This side had something akin to a black phone screen on it. Coming from one end was a thin cord with an input similar to ones on headphones. I pushed the device into my pocket.

I picked up a slice of fish and gave it to Hue. While he ate it, I tapped Gold on his arm to get his attention.

“I’m going to the restroom.”

“An Enforcer can show you were it is.”

Nodding, I stood and set Nyx in my chair. When I was sure neither he or Silver would notice, I picked up my backpack and walked out the door. After closing the door, I looked around myself. The hallway was empty. There wasn't a single Enforcer to be seen. Were Gold and Silver that unconcerned about me attempting to leave? This was beginning to feel too easy.

“Where did you get the core?” I asked Hue while I pulled my backpack on. He made a light chirping nose as he flew up and made himself comfortable on the top of my backpack.

Taking my phone from my pocket, I messaged Ashe and Ninety-one that Hue had the core and that I was leaving the building. Ninety-one responded quickly with an 'okay'. I didn't expect anything from Ashe. With a smile, I exhaled a shaky breath. Easy or not, we had done it. This time tomorrow I will be back home with all the moving boxes unpacked. In a week, everything will be back to normal and all of this will just be a bad memory.


	16. Chapter 16

Eventually, I reached the exit. Stepping out, I was shocked to see that the parking was filled with police cars. Every one of them had been wrecked horribly. Bumpers, hoods, doors, and parts I didn’t know the name of had been thrown about. Amongst the wreckage were four Enforcers and dead police officers.

“Sol!”

Turning to my left, I saw Ashe and Quince. They were kneeling on the ground. Mariah stood over them. Next to her was an Overseer.

"It would seem that your new addition knows our attackers," the Overseer spoke. Frowning, Mariah began walking towards me.

"Run!" Quince shouted.

"Silence," Mariah spoke. Her voice was filled with more annoyance than anger. "Did you two honestly think that this little attack would work? Mere policemen with guns? I've faced off against monsters, this is almost an insult."

I readied myself to run but stopped when I felt something large move past me. At my side stood a large lion. Its mane and fur were completely black. It stared up at me with almost white eyes. I stepped away as the animal lifted its head to smell at my arm. With a low growl, it bared its fangs. Hue snarled in return.

"And what are you doing out here?" The Overseer asked and he moved towards me. He gazed over me with suspicion and disdain. "I was told that you were cooperating, but I knew you wouldn't. Not after the trouble you've caused before. Someone like you doesn't simply do what they are told. No, you only cause trouble and ruin months of other people's work."

I stepped away from him. "What happened in Goldsboro was an accident."

"An accident!" He shouted. "You made us look like fools."

"Enough," Mariah commanded. The Overseer looked back as she approached him. "They are hardly the root of your failure."

"We lost a perfectly good district. They should still be punished for the destruction they caused," he said while turning to Mariah.

Ready to resume venting his anger, the Overseers pointed a bony finger in my face. Hue didn’t hesitate to lunge forward to bite him. My ears rang with the sound of the bone snapping. When the Overseer lumped back there was nothing left of his finger but a bloody stump. His gravelly voice cut through the air as he screamed.

Hue dropped the severed finger in disgust. Panicked, I turned to run. I only made it a few steps before the lion jumped in front of me. Hue growled at it. I could feel him crouch on my shoulder, ready to lunge at him.

"Leave them, Eclipse," Mariah commanded. Closing its mouth, the lion huffed at us before backing off.

"This will not go unpunished!" the Overseer shouted. He cradled his injured hand near his chest. Blood poured from between his fingers.

"Wrong," Mariah spoke as she approached him. "This is another consequence of your vast underestimation of what we are. Do not pick a fight with a Colonizer unless you are willing to face their familiar as well."

He turned to her, enraged. "This person and their pet are hardly worth what you think they are."

"You know nothing of my people or why we are here," she shot back. At her side, the lion, Eclipse, growled. "We do far more than simply taking over places. We have an understanding of this world that far exceeds what your group could even pretend to comprehend."

"How dare you-!"

The two of them stepped closer towards each other. Their voices were rising and the anger between them grew. I slowly stepped away from them and over to where Ashe and Quince were still kneeling.

"We need to get out of here," Ashe whispered after I helped him up.

"How?" Quince asked. "Even if we run, they'll notice and catch us.."

"Sol!" I flinched as Mariah's angered voice cut through the air.

"Look at them. They are not one of you. They have allied with the people who have come to attack you. Despite what you may think, this person has no allegiance to you."

"What are you doing?" Mariah asked, ignoring the Overseer.

"Betraying you!"

"Stop your whining!" She turned, shouting at him.

Quince grabbed at my shirt, pulling me to run with her. Without much thought, I follow her. Ashe not far behind. We race across the parking lot, weaving through car wreckage and broken bodies. From ahead, the Enforcers move to stop us. They are faster than us. Each of us knows the damage they can cause. We try to avoid them, but there are too many obstacles. We're too slow. When the first one reaches us, it grabs for me. Hue attacks it. He knows to go for the throat. 

"We're not going to make it," Ashe said with realization.

Two of the Enforcers get in front of us. We're forced to stop and look for another way out. With three of them remaining and Mariah approaching behind us, we have little to no options.

"Hue!" I call. He came flying to me. I catch him in my arms as he grabs onto my shirt. His white face is covered in black Enforcer blood. "I need to use the core to help. Something big that can help us."

Immediately, two of the colors begin glowing on his back. The crimson and a new dark blue section that sat between the medium blue and the purple.

"What's happening?" Quince asked in a panic.

The husks of police cars around us almost appear to vibrate. That flash between a hue blue, then red, and back to normal. The switching is quick, almost like a blur. It spread out from us to the building, and the building passed that, to cars passing on the street. There is a screech of tires as scared drivers slam on their breaks. I watch as one driver passes through their car like air, landing on the unforgiving asphalt, only to be struck down by the vehicle behind them.

The growing chaos detracts everyone, but not me. I force Quince and Ashe forward and we keep running. We passed directly through the car remains. The Enforcers could not. One gets stuck in the middle of one after trying to force itself through after us.

Once we made it to the sidewalk, we followed the road. All around us things continued to vibrate and blink between colors. Things had begun falling from the buildings around us. Chairs, computers, desks, all of it fell to the ground. Thankfully, no people. The unmistakable sound of a helicopter roared over us. We watched as it passed through a building, with only the tail of it being spit out the other side.

"Jay," I heard Ashe all but mutter before frantically asking, "How are you doing this?"

"I'm not, Hue is."

"Make him stop!" Quince shouted.

"No," Ashe spoke up. "Not until we can get away."

Ahead of us, I notice a familiar white van. Unlike everything else, it isn't blinking between colors. It slows and stops once it reaches us.

"What's happening?" Ninety-one shouts from the passenger's seat.

"We need to go," Ashe tells him.

Quince screams when an Enforcer comes up and pushes her to the ground. She is helpless against its strength. The second one is upon us in moments, grabbing for Ashe.

"I have had enough of this," Mariah says as she nears us, her lion at her side. Trailing far behind her is the Overseer. She holds out her hand. Above her palm appeared a white outline of a symbol. It was the same one that marked Burilmont on the map in the library. With a wave of her hand, everything goes still. The buildings and cars stop blind between colors. Everything is back to normal and the symbol vanishes.

"How is that possible?" Ashe asked. The Enforcer had him pushed into the ground next to Quince.

"We Colonizers are capable of sharing the power of a single core," she said as if it was common knowledge. Her gaze is focused on me. "What exactly did you intend to accomplish by destroying the city?"

"I’m not going with you," I tell her. "I'm not going to let you take me."

Eclipse growls and Hue returns it. Mariah scoffs. "What was your plan then? Unleash a power you have no control over and hope for the best. Do you even understand what kind of damage you just caused in those brief minutes? This is why you need to be trained."

She had stopped behind the Enforcers, her eyes glaring into me. She gazed down at Ashe and Quince, then to Ninety-one and Zero-zero who were watching from inside the van.

"They will only bring destruction," the Overseer said, finally catching up to us. He was still gripping his bleeding hand. "Just get rid of them and be done with it."

Mariah ignored him. Her anger seemed to lessen. "Untrained Colonizers only bring destruction. You've done it in that little city of yours and you almost did it here. But if you must learn this the hard way then so be it."

"What?" the Overseer questioned.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"If you're that willing to go on pretending that you are one of these people, then go ahead. You'll learn soon enough. Once your recklessness causes enough destruction." She only has to glance at the Enforcers for them to get the command to release Ashe and Quince. "But you won't be doing it here. Take these people of yours and get out. We'll see each other again I'm sure. I only hope you'll be more reasonable."

Quince and Ashe watcher her and the Enforcers as they back away from them, waiting for their attack to come. The Enforcers don’t move.

"You can't be serious," the Overseer argues, walking up. "After all of this you are just going to let them go, all of them?"

Mariah turned to him. "They refuse to cooperate and I don't feel like forcing them when they will come willingly sooner or later. Sol will become a Colonizer in time. Until then, if you have a problem with them, then you are the one dealing with it."

His eyes went wide before he turned to glare at me. "Very well. Then I will."

Then they left. They all merely walked away. Back towards the building with the wreckage police cars and bodies of officers. Our plan had failed, utterly and completely. People were killed and Burilmont practically destroyed, and yet we were allowed to go. I hadn't been forced to leave, we'd lost our home. Ashe and Quince as well.

I wanted to cry again. But all of this was my fault. I didn't have the right to. Not after what I had just cost everyone around me. Was it always going to be like this? Would I always destroy the things around me? Would I ever get a proper home?

We all climbed into the van and Zero-zero started driving. We didn't have a destination in mind. We just needed to get out of that area. The drive was filled with frantically asked questions, most of them were directed at me. I didn't want to talk about any of it. Eventually, we stopped at the Recall building. Ashe had to call people, make arrangements for someone new to take over this part of Recall. Quince asked if we could take her home later. She had things she needed to pack up.

I said nothing as we went to both Quince and Ashe's homes to help them pack their things. The plan was to head to the nearest safe city and come up with something there. There was a possibility that there was someone from Recall that might be able to help us.


End file.
